Twin Envy
by CidGregor
Summary: A family crisis leaves Sarah and Elliot’s relationship on the rocks...but after a strange accident in Tedd’s lab, Sarah’s suddenly more into Elliot than ever. Still, Elliot can’t shake the feeling that something's not quite right...
1. The Moper of Moperville

**Twin Envy**

**by CidGregor**

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This story is rated T, by for a bit of strong language, some moderately strong thematic elements early on, and some mild sexual content later on.

Disclaimer: El Goonish Shive and all related characters and devices are owned and copyrighted by Dan Shive.

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**Chapter One: The Moper of Moperville**_  
_

"A tweak tweak here, a crank crank there, and then I can go to bed…that's how a mad scientist works, in the merry old lab of Tedd…"

Tedd Verres sat in his basement lab, humming merrily to himself as he thumbed a screwdriver with one hand and a small towel in the other, making adjustments to his prized possession, the transformation gun.

"A trigger wipe, a V-3 type, to give her a catgirl head…you'll find the craziness abounds, in the merry old lab of Tedd," he sang, chuckling at his own wit.

"Y'know, that's just a _tad _annoying."

Purple hair and bespectacled eyes spun around to face the voice and replied in the same tone, "Y'know, you don't _have_ to hang around here and keep me company."

A brown-haired, well-toned teen dressed in slacks and a black T-shirt lounged on the couch in Tedd's line of sight, rolling his eyes. "Yeah, well…I felt like it."

Tedd rolled his eyes right back and returned to his work. "C'mon, Elliot, stop moping. I'm telling you it'll all blow over soon."

Elliot Dunkel only grunted in response, folding his arms and curling up on the couch. "That's what you said two days ago."

"Couples fight all the time, dude. Grace and I managed to butt heads just last week. It happens. Deal with it."

Elliot sighed anyway, not answering him. He was having a really, really bad couple of days. That was about when it had started: his first big fight with Sarah. And that was no exaggeration; it was a BIG fight. He'd never, ever seen Sarah so upset, and certainly not at him. He knew, of course, that Tedd was right, that such things happened with couples every now and then. But he'd always thought that he'd be prepared for them, that he'd know how to resolve them when they finally came about. He always had been when he'd dated Nanase, in any case. He'd always been able to identify what the problem was and find a solution for it, when they fought. But this fight with Sarah was different. For the first time he was honestly and completely stumped as to what her problem was. It was most definitely not a good feeling.

Tedd stood, holding his prized possession in both hands. "C'mon, let me take your mind off it. Check out my latest addition to the TF Gun! The 'stun' setting!"

"Mmm," Elliot mumbled disinterestedly.

Tedd pressed on nevertheless. "Ever since Ellen's V-5 beam ended up _stunning_ that super-goo-monster thing instead of morphing it, I've been trying to replicate that effect with the TF gun, and well…here it is!"

"Uh-huh," came Elliot's grunted response.

"It'll be able to create a variety of stun effects depending on the settings, from a simple immobilization to full-on, knock-you-to-the-floor unconscious, and lasting anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours! What do you think of that, eh? I haven't fully tested it yet, but all the calculations seem to be more or less correct, so with a few more adjustments I'll have it perfected."

"Mm-hmm."

Tedd frowned, glaring at him. "And then maybe I was thinking about making out with your sister."

"Uh-huh."

Tedd rolled his eyes, turned, and put on an expression of mock-surprise. "Oh look, Sarah's here!"

Elliot jerked into motion. "Sarah?!" he shouted, spinning around toward the stairs and of course finding no one there.

"Jeez, Elliot, you are _pathetic_ when you're moping," Tedd said with another eye-roll.

"Shut up," Elliot muttered back, a bit embarrassed.

"And you _still_ haven't told me exactly why you two are fighting."

"That's because I don't _know_ why we're fighting!" Elliot burst out in frustration. "She's just…mad at me for some reason, and I don't know what it is…"

"Sarah can't be mad at you for absolutely no reason at all," Tedd reasoned. "…Unless of course it's that time of the m--"

A pillow was hurled at his face before he could finish. "Don't even _joke _about that," Elliot insisted, shuddering. "Besides…that was last week."

Tedd grimaced. "And now we've reached the realm of 'too much information.'"

Elliot ignored him and went on muttering to himself. "It just doesn't make sense…why is she mad at _me…_?"

"Well, there's always the lovely and very distinct possibility that you did something really stupid without realizing it," Tedd observed.

"Trust me, I've considered that," Elliot said. "And it's not the answer."

"How are you so sure of that?" Tedd asked.

Elliot didn't respond immediately, and a pained look came over his eyes. "Because--"

He was interrupted, however, by the sound of the basement door opening and closing, heavy footsteps moving down the stairs, and the irritated voice of Tedd's father speaking into a cell phone.

"I _understand _that, but…" he tried to say, but whoever was on the other end clearly interrupted him, and it was a moment before he spoke again. "…What?! You can't expect me to babysit the thing forever!"

Tedd turned toward his father, intrigued. "What's going on?"

Mr. Verres shushed him with a wave of his phone hand, for the other was wrapped around a cardboard box with a variety of official-looking stamps and markings on them, many of which said things like "confidential" or "government property." Needless to say, this only intrigued Tedd more.

"Alright, alright, _fine_! But you owe me!" Mr. Verres finished and slapped the phone shut, muttering. "Great…just what we need…"

Tedd grew more excited than ever; anything that annoyed his father was likely to provide him endless hours of entertainment. "What's going on, dad?"

Mr. Verres sighed and set the cardboard box on the desk, which Tedd eyed greedily. "The PTTAOLUTASF has been disbanded."

Now it was Elliot's turn to take interest as he sat up and looked at Mr. Verres. "The place where we went to use the dewitchery diamond?"

"Apparently someone upstairs decided it was a waste of funding to support an office that no one cared about and had little use to anyone," Mr. Verres said ironically. "And funny you mention the dewitchery diamond…"

At that, he opened the cardboard box, and Elliot suddenly became aware that Mr. Verres was wearing thick leather gloves over his hands. He reached inside the box, and lifted out its contents: a large, shimmering crystal, clear as any other diamond, but with a distinct green glow emitting from it as Mr. Verres held it in his hands, and all present recognized it for exactly what it was.

Tedd's jaw dropped to the floor in awe. "No way…"

"Yes way," his father answered with a bit of a grimace. "With PTTAOLUTASF disbanded, everything in it had to go _somewhere_. A lot ended up in various storage rooms, but since the government realized this thing actually has _some_ use after the incident with it last month, a new home for the dewitchery diamond is being specially designed, to avoid running the risk of anyone touching it and accidentally cloning themselves. Until that's done, however, for some god-awful reason, I've been assigned custody of it."

Elliot looked warily at the glowing diamond, now understanding the reason for the thick gloves. A variety of mixed emotions and memories flooded him at the sight of the artifact. It had caused him an incredible amount of trouble, not the least of which was getting him arrested for a few hours and putting him through multiple transformation pains. He almost wished he'd rejected Tedd's plan to use it and just lived as a female for that month. But at the same time, the adventure with diamond had resulted in his own duplicate, his twin sister Ellen, being created, and he already loved and cared for her as closely as any other member of his family. He certainly couldn't imagine a life in which she never existed.

"Why did they pick you?" Elliot found himself asking.

"Well, _apparently_, my superiors decided that since I have prior experience dealing with the effects of the diamond, I'm somehow qualified to watch over it," Mr. Verres answered, sounding as though he completely disagreed with that logic. And with a son like Tedd around, who was clearly itching to toy with the thing, Elliot couldn't help but agree with Mr. Verres.

"Dad--" Tedd began.

"NO!" Mr. Verres cut him off instantly. "The dewitchery diamond is not a toy!"

"But Dad!" Tedd almost whined. "If I could just do a few experiments with the diamond's morphing effects, it could really help further my research with the TF Gun technology!"

Mr. Verres shook his head vehemently. "Absolutely not. It's far too risky. I do NOT want another incident involving this diamond on my hands. The last thing I need right now is two of you."

"But I promise I'll be really careful!"

"Sorry, son, I just can't risk it," he said, striding across the room and toward a blank section of the basement wall. He tapped at a particular spot on the rough stone surface, and to Tedd and Elliot's amazement, a chunk of stone about the size of a television slid back and out of the way, revealing a safe tucked inside the hole.

"Since when has that been there?!" Tedd exclaimed.

"Since I had this house built to government-employee-specifications," Mr. Verres answered as he dialed in the combination and opened the safe. He set the diamond inside the thick metal, shut the door and ensured it was locked, then tapped another spot on the wall that made the missing section rise back up into place seamlessly.

"Now I don't want either of you trying to snoop your way into that safe," he said sternly to the two boys. "Don't forget the collective headache we all ended up with the last time you got yourselves involved with the dewitchery diamond."

"Gee, so my sister is a headache? Thanks…" Elliot muttered.

"You know what I meant!" Mr. Verres amended. "We just don't want another incident like that on our hands. Now promise me you won't go trying to break into the safe to get at the dewitchery diamond!"

"But Dad…" Tedd actually did whine this time.

"Promise me!"

Tedd sighed. "_Fine_. I promise."

"Good. And now if you'll excuse me I'm long overdue for my evening coffee."

Mr. Verres nodded to Elliot, then turned on his heel and climbed the stairs back to the main floor of the house. Predictably enough, the instant the basement door had shut, Tedd, rushed to the wall and ran his hands over the surface, analyzing it.

"Absolute genius…it's seamlessly sealed…definitely some Uryuom technology at work here…I wonder how Dad got his hands on it…"

"Tedd, you have a blaster that can switch people's gender. A sliding wall can't possibly be more interesting than that."

"Doesn't mean the sliding wall is _un_-interesting," Tedd countered, still focused on the wall. "Hmm…wonder how he made it open…"

"Didn't you just promise your dad you wouldn't go prying?"

"Weren't you just moping about Sarah?"

Elliot winced, and curled up on the couch again, muttering.

Tedd sighed. "Okay, okay, I'm sorry, that was a low blow…"

"Stupid Sarah…"

"Oh, c'mon Elliot, it's not the end of the world if she's mad at you. Heck, maybe she wasn't even mad at _you_…maybe she's mad for some other reason and just happened to take it out on you by mistake."

"For two days?" Elliot countered sharply.

Tedd shrugged. "Best I can come up with, if you have no clue why she's mad."

Elliot sighed again. "That's just it, though…"

Tedd frowned. "Huh?"

Elliot looked up at him for a moment, then back at the floor. "I can't think of any reason she'd be mad at me specifically…but I know why she might be mad in general…maybe you're right…maybe she _is _taking it out on me for some reason…"

After a quick battle of interests, Tedd abandoned his inspection of the wall and sat down next to his friend. "So why are you moping about it down here instead of going and talking to her? Maybe she's gotten over it and realized she's taking it out on you and wants to apologize. That's not gonna happen if you hide down here."

"I'm not hiding," Elliot mumbled. "Besides…this isn't the sort of thing you just 'get over' in two days time…"

Tedd nodded. "All right, so…spill. What is she mad about?"

Elliot found himself turning over to stare straight up, as though looking straight through the walls of the house and into the heavens, and it was not until Tedd nearly gave up on hearing an answer that Elliot finally opened his mouth and gave him one…

* * *

Author's Note: For those who didn't recognize the joke, the song Tedd is singing in the beginning is a parody of "Merry Old Land of Oz" from The Wizard of Oz. Just wanted to ensure that was clear.

* * *


	2. Harsh Reality

**Twin Envy**

**by CidGregor**

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**Chapter Two: Harsh Reality**_  
_

"_**Sarah's always been…really expressive, emotionally…she was never one to suppress herself when she was mad, or upset, or freaked out…so I guess…with something as big as this…her reaction shouldn't come as such a surprise.**_"

A few blocks away, a petite, blonde-haired girl of seventeen lay limply upon her un-made bed in rumpled pajamas, a spot on the pillow beneath her damp from the tears that leaked from bloodshot eyes. Where her walls had once been decorated with posters of her favorite musicians and paintings of a certain brown-haired half-cat, they were now papered with dark, joyless paintings; black and red dominated the works, making her entire room seem to swallow up what little light reached through the closed curtain.

The girl slowly sat up, drew her legs up to her chest, and hugged her arms around them, staring blankly at the wall. After a long moment, she turned and reached into the drawer of her nightstand. Slowly, almost reluctantly, she drew out an object from within, and looked at it. It was a framed photograph of a pair of people sitting together in front of a canvas. One of them the girl could recognize was she herself, perhaps at age five or so; her fingers and hands and even as far up as her tiny wrists were covered in finger-paint, slapping it all over the paper before her and looking as though she was having the time of her life. And right beside her, helping her, was an older man, little square spectacles adorning his plump face and a mess of grey, almost white hair atop his head, enjoying himself just as much.

The girl couldn't help it; she traced a delicate finger around the figure of the man in the photo, and as she did, a tear fell from one eye and landed right atop him.

"…_**Sarah's grandfather passed away a couple of days ago."**_

Quickly she stuffed the photo back into the drawer, slammed it closed, and threw herself back down on the bed, hiding her face as another wave of anger and sadness ran down her spine and gave her a shiver.

"Grandpa…"

"_**I never really knew him all that well…but Sarah was…close to him…really close."**_

Sarah tried not to let the rush of memories come to her, knowing full well how painful it would be, but they came anyway. Older memories came first…memories of picnics at the park, throwing Frisbees and swinging on the playground while he pushed her...memories of riding high up on his shoulders, of getting her little knee-scrapes kissed so they'd feel better. Then came the newer memories, memories in which he somehow never seemed to grow any older. She saw him taking her to her first real art class, shaking and nervous until she showed her first painting to the class and they all ooh-ed and ahh-ed over it and grandpa was right there beside her telling her how proud he was…she remembered nights together of laughing at old movies from when he was young and sneaking ice cream when they weren't supposed to and him asking her if there were any special boys that she really liked and she went terribly red because of course she'd invited Elliot over that night…

"_**He'd always been pretty healthy, even for his age…probably why it was such a shock to her when her parents told her."**_

Her thoughts fast-forwarded against her will and came to a rest just a couple of days prior…she'd walked home from school and come in the front door just like always, and called out hello to her parents just the way she did every day, and put away her backpack and came into the kitchen to greet her parents in person, the same as any other day…except they didn't say 'hello' back to her, didn't respond at all except to look sadly at her, and she knew right then that it _wasn't_ the same, that it would _never _be the same again…

Then suddenly they were at the hospital, and oh God she didn't want to be there, she couldn't, she _wouldn't_ see him like this, with tubes in his mouth and IV needles in his skin and machines monitoring his pulse as it slowly faded and God, why did it have to be him…?

"_**The doctors said…his heart was weak. Always had been. He was in danger of heart problems for a lot of his life, but it just never manifested until that day…when he had a heart attack."**_

And then there was that beep, that long, unbroken, bone-chilling beep, and she knew that the nurses rushing in couldn't do any good, he was gone, and a part of her had gone with him…

Sarah snapped out of the memories with an angry sob. It wasn't fair, she told herself. He'd been a healthy person all his life; he didn't smoke or drink, he ate right, he exercised…everything a person was supposed to do to stay healthy…and life paid him back with a heart attack and took him away from her. It just wasn't _fair_.

"_**No one was expecting it, least of all Sarah…and, well…it hit her really hard. Needless to say…she's not taking it well at all."**_

Her arm dangled over the edge of the bed, and grazed something rough and flexible that she'd stuffed underneath there sometime in the last two days. She had half a mind to just smash whatever it was, if for no other reason than to vent some of her anger and frustration. But as she pulled it from under the bed to do just that, she looked at it and realized what it was: her canvas portrait of a certain brown-haired boy, half-morphed into a big furry cat.

_Elliot… _she thought, a mass of emotions tagged to the name rushing upon her. They'd been together for a while now, and she'd been crushing on him for a long time before that, and he was never mean or hurtful or unfaithful to her, and he always did his best to make her happy…in that sense, she couldn't help but love him. But he just didn't understand. At least her parents knew exactly what she'd lost, having lost it themselves…but Elliot…he'd never truly known her grandfather. The comfort he'd tried to offer her when she told him was empty…forced, even. The kind someone gives when they have no idea how to react or what they should say. Elliot didn't have a clue just how much her grandpa had meant to her, and she hated him for it. She hated that the one person she found herself desperately wanting comfort from wasn't giving it.

_But he's trying, at least, isn't he?_ Some part of her reasoned as she stared into the kind, honest eyes of the boy in the painting. _Maybe he doesn't know how you feel, but at least he's trying to be there for you anyway…isn't that enough?_

One thing was for sure…she did regret what had happened right after that. He'd been trying to comfort her…trying and failing…and when he couldn't ease her pain like she so desperately needed, it was like a dam suddenly broke, like all her anger and frustrations just came spilling out in one big rush…and Elliot was the one she drowned with it. The things she'd said to him…angry or not, she wanted so badly to take them back.

_You have to talk to him,_ her conscience reasoned. The rest of her eventually agreed, and she was in her coat and out the door before she knew it.

* * *

"I tried to be there for her…to comfort her, to give her…I dunno, a shoulder to cry on, I guess…but she wouldn't have it. She just…pushed me away." 

Tedd nodded along, enraptured by his friend's story. "Man…that has to hurt…"

"You're telling me," Elliot said. "It's like…she's mad at the world for taking her grandfather away from her. And I guess I'm just unlucky enough to be the scapegoat…some of the things she said…it was just painful to hear them…especially coming from Sarah."

"Well, like you said, she probably just made a scapegoat out of you," Tedd reminded him as he went back to his computer. "She's probably realized it by now and feels so bad about it she can't face you."

"Yeah, sure," Elliot muttered cynically. "Or maybe she's still stuck in 'I hate you, I never want to see you again' mode…"

"Yeesh…she actually said that?"

Elliot nodded and sighed into the couch cushion.

Tedd turned to Elliot again as a program on his computer loaded. "You have to know she didn't mean it, dude."

"She still said it," Elliot said back.

"And I'm sure she's sorry, but you should still talk to her about it. The longer this thing drags on the worse it's gonna get. You'll get bitter, she'll get upset all over again when she doesn't hear from you, and it'll all blow up in your face."

Once again Elliot's only answer was to grumble and mutter inaudibly.

Tedd turned back to his computer, typing in a few commands. "Well fine, don't listen to me. I'm just the genius mad scientist successfully holding onto a girlfriend."

"Look, Tedd, I appreciate your advice, but I just don't want to deal with it right now."

"I'm not saying you have to _now_," Tedd amended. "Just…_soon_."

"…I guess," came Elliot's noncommittal reply.

"Good. In the meantime you can give me a hand here," Tedd changed the subject.

Glad for the excuse to stop thinking about his problem with Sarah, Elliot crawled off the couch and over to the computer, where he could get a good look at the program Tedd had been fiddling with. It was a web-camera program, he discovered, and judging by the number of open windows on the screen, it was connected to not just the camera mounted atop Tedd's computer monitor, but something like half-a-dozen mounted in various spots around the basement, each capturing the room from a different angle.

"Smile, you're on candid camera," Tedd chuckled.

Elliot didn't look amused. "I hope for your sake these weren't running while we were all body-switching at the birthday party."

Tedd looked drolly at him. "C'mon, dude, have a _little_ faith in me."

"What are they for, then?"

"They're mostly for keeping a record of any transformation-related activity in the event something goes wrong. …Or in the event of a particularly cool transformation that I want to see again in slow motion," he added with a sly grin.

"I bet Grace would just _love_ to hear about that," Elliot said with an eyeroll.

"Actually…it was her idea." He eyes glazed over as he grinned widely. "God I love that woman…"

"…Uh-huh. Well, nothing's going wrong, and there's been no saucy transforming recently, so what exactly are you looking for?"

"This!" he announced, pointing dramatically at one of the windows, which showed the boys a recording of Tedd's father as he opened the secret wall in the basement and hid the dewitchery diamond inside.

"Tedd," Elliot said warningly when the camera zoomed in to pinpoint the exact spot on the wall that activated the secret compartment. "You promised your dad you weren't gonna go breaking in there."

"And I'm not," he answered. "I'm opening it perfectly normally. No breaking involved."

Elliot threw up his hands and dropped back down onto the couch. "Forget it…I don't have the willpower to fight off your ridiculous logic."

"I'm just gonna run a couple of harmless little experiments, he'll never know," Tedd assured him, mirroring what his father did in the recording and tapping the exact spot he needed to. As he'd hoped, the wall slid open again, revealing the safe. Tedd looked at the recording again as it zoomed in to capture the safe's combination as well, and entered it into the dial. The tumblers clicked into place and the door popped open easily, and Tedd eagerly reached for the diamond inside.

"Hey hey hey!" Elliot jumped up and smacked his hands away. "If you're really gonna disobey your dad, at least wear some gloves or something before you go grabbing that thing!"

"I'm not transformed or cursed or anything, it's not gonna do anything to me," Tedd assured him.

"You sure of that?" Elliot asked rhetorically. "You sure it's not going to create an unwanted clone of yourself anyway?"

Tedd considered the point, decided he really _didn't_ know enough about the diamond to say that with any certainty, and carefully wrapped a cloth around the diamond before removing it.

"Look at it," Tedd stared wide-eyed at the bundle. "It's beautiful."

Elliot just sighed. "I have a bad feeling about this…"

* * *


	3. Experimental Disaster

**Twin Envy**

**by CidGregor**

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**Chapter Three: Experimental Disaster**

_**Knock-knock**_

Ellen Dunkel's tired eyes snapped open for a brief moment upon hearing the sound, then rapidly narrowed into slits as they glared at the front door.

_**Knock-knock-knock.**_

It was louder and more incessant this time, which only served to annoy Ellen further. If there was one thing she didn't like, it was being woken up when she was napping. Sure, it was early evening, so she supposed she couldn't blame whoever it was for coming to call at a perfectly reasonable hour. But then, she wasn't one to sleep at reasonable hours.

She dragged herself up off the couch, where she had fallen asleep an hour ago in the middle of a documentary on _Star Wars_, and yawned, scratching herself unglamorously.

_**Knock-knock-knock.**_

"Hold yer horses, I'm comin'," she mumbled in a voice her visitor had no hope of hearing. She pulled on a heavy black coat from the hall closet over her pajamas to block the evening chill, and turned to the door. With a mildly annoyed but mostly tired glare, she yanked it open.

For about five full seconds, her only-partially-functioning brain thought she was looking at a mirror. The reflection she was seeing was similarly dressed in rumpled pajamas, shielded only by a thick coat that was the same color as Ellen's. The reflection's eyes were similarly bleary and tired, and its hair was a disheveled mess. But then Ellen realized the reflection was about three inches shorter and blonde, and she deduced it must have been Sarah.

"Hey, Ellen," came the confirming voice of her brother's girlfriend. "….is Elliot here?"

Ellen's glare softened…though only slightly. "…No."

Sarah frowned, looking a little disappointed. "Oh…alright…sorry to bother you."

She turned away to walk off, but a mild pang of guilt in Ellen's conscience made her call the other girl back.

"Hey, wait, hold on," she insisted, her words punctuated by another yawn. "What do you need him for?"

Sarah shrugged uncomfortably. "I just need to talk to him…"

"Looking like that? Sarah, you're a mess."

Sarah ran a hand through her hair in a feeble attempt to straighten it. "I haven't been having a good couple of days…"

"'Cause of your fight with Elliot?"

Sarah looked up, a bit startled. "You…heard?"

"More like dragged it out of him," Ellen corrected her. "He was moping around for a while…I got sick of watching it…you know the drill."

"Did…he say why?"

Ellen shook her head no. "He didn't seem to have a clue 'why.' Mind fillin' in that blank? I'm hoping he did somethin' stupid to justify some of the stuff he claims you said."

She didn't think she'd sounded mad at all, simply inquisitive; but Sarah seemed to go immediately on the defensive.

"Look, I've been going through a tough time okay?" she shot back. "I just don't need this stupid fight with Elliot on top of--"

She abruptly stopped herself from going on, which immediately piqued Ellen's curiosity. Her eyes opened a little more, a note of concern starting to fill them. "On top of what?"

Sarah suddenly looked miserable, and Ellen was half-convinced she was going to break down and cry right then and there. As it happened, she managed not to break down, but a pair of tears did manage to leak out.

"…My grandpa, he…he d-died a couple days ago."

Ellen winced sympathetically. "Ouch…sorry to hear that."

Sarah sniffled a bit. "So I just need to fix this stupid thing with Elliot, because I can't deal with him being mad at me and--"

"Why _is_ he mad at you?" Ellen suddenly interjected. "How'd this whole fight start?"

Sarah's expression turned abruptly harsh. "Not that it's any of your business, but Elliot was just completely not there for me when I needed him to be after grandpa died, and--"

"Not there for you?" Ellen echoed. "That doesn't sound like Elliot."

"Well, he wasn't!" Sarah snapped back.

"So, what, was he avoiding you?"

Sarah paused. "Well…no…"

"Did he refuse to listen to you when you wanted to talk about it?"

"…No."

"Did he push you away when, I assume, you wanted comfort from him?"

"…N-no…"

"So he _was_ there for you, he _did_ listen to you talk to him about your grandpa dying, and he _did_ try to comfort you….and in response you yell and him and call him insensitive and say you never want to see him again?" Ellen's eyes narrowed into a glare again. "Yeah, you might wanna fix that."

"Look, I didn't come here so you could judge me! I just want to talk to Elliot!"

Ellen rolled her eyes and yawned, too tired to argue. "Whatever. He's at Tedd's place."

"_Thank you_," she said back, and turned down the block toward Tedd's house.

"Yeesh…mood swings much…?" Ellen muttered before shutting the door and returning to her nap.

* * *

"I'd like to reiterate that I have a very bad feeling about this."

"Duly noted," Tedd answered drolly. "Screwdriver."

Elliot dropped the requested tool lazily into Tedd's outstretched hand. "What the hell are you building, anyway?"

"Just a small safety case for holding the diamond and the TF Gun while I run the first experiment," Tedd explained as he gestured to the contraption before him. It was a box of sorts, with clear, hard plastic walls held together with steel rims along the edges. At the top of the box was a latch that unlocked the lid of the box, the hinges of which Tedd was currently screwing into place. The box was small enough to fit atop Tedd's desk, but large enough to hold both the TF Gun and the dewitchery diamond comfortably; Elliot knew this because that was exactly what was inside the box, each mounted on a small stand that held them upright.

"And what, exactly, does this experiment of yours entail?" Elliot asked, not quite sure he wanted to hear the answer.

"Oh, it's just a simple test of the TF Gun's transforming effects when combined with the diamond," Tedd said as calmly as though he were commenting on the weather.

This did nothing to ease Elliot's nerves. "So, what, is it supposed to transform you and split you in two at the same time?"

"That's a distinct possibility."

Elliot slapped his forehead. "Tedd…"

"Don't worry, Elliot!" Tedd assured him. "I'm not gonna test any transforming settings yet; in fact, this is the perfect time for a real test of the stun setting!"

"Obviously your definition of 'perfect' and mine are in severe conflict," Elliot muttered. "Please tell me you don't plan to test it on yourself. Or me, for that matter."

"I can see where you'd think that, but no," Tedd assured him. "And on that note, wait right here while I grab my test subjects."

Tedd darted up the stairs abruptly, leaving Elliot alone with his thoughts.

Great. Just what he needed.

It came as no surprise to him when thoughts of Sarah were the first to float forward, and he couldn't help but wonder again just what her problem was. He had the beginnings of a picture now, having talked to Tedd – the idea that she was unleashing her anger over her grandfather at some undeserving, outside entity that just happened to be him – but what he still couldn't figure out was, _why _was she lashing out at _him_? Of all the people or places or things she could have focused her anger on, why did it have to be him? What had he ever done to deserve it? He loved her, cared about her, did nice things for her, apologized if he said something stupid…all the things a good boyfriend was supposed to do. So why was he the scapegoat?

His mind flashed back to the moment it had started, when she'd first told him about her loss. He remembered the expression on her face so clearly…and he'd hated seeing it. He hated to see her even the slightest bit sad. It ate at him, pained him to see such sadness etched into her face, and worse still, he hated not knowing how to comfort her. He hadn't really known her grandfather at all, beyond meeting him once or twice and by word of mouth from Sarah, so whatever comfort he'd tried to offer her, though it was the best he could do, wasn't much at all.

Maybe that was her problem, Elliot thought with a slight frown. Maybe he just hadn't been able to give her the comfort she'd needed, and in response she'd lashed out in frustration. That certainly would make sense of this whole mess, he reasoned.

But coming to this realization wasn't a relief as he'd been hoping it would be. He only grew more annoyed than ever. All that might have _explained_ Sarah's actions, but it did nothing to _excuse_ them. He'd done nothing wrong, nothing at all, and she was mad at him? Sure, maybe if it had been a momentary thing, he wouldn't have minded; but she was letting this drag on for two days? It was ridiculous.

He shook his head, frustrated all over again. He didn't want to think about it anymore, it was only making him madder. He resigned himself not to think about it anymore, not until Sarah came to him and apologized.

So when he heard the words Tedd was saying as he thudded back down the steps, it was just his misfortune that he chose that moment to snap.

"Hey, ah, Elliot? About Sarah--"

"Tedd, I'm done talking about Sarah, okay?" he said loudly, not looking toward him. "If she wants to be a pain about this, let her, I'm sick of talking about it."

"Ah…Elliot…she's here."

Elliot's head whipped around in horror, and sure enough, there she was at the bottom of the stairs, glaring at him with tired, bloodshot eyes half-obscured by her messy hair. Standing beside her was uncomfortable-looking Tedd holding a cage of lab rats, who coughed awkwardly and scurried over to his workstation again.

"I'll just, um…go over here…don't mind me…" he murmured.

Sarah ignored him, her glare still focused on Elliot. "So I'm a pain now, am I?"

Elliot grimaced and tried not to get angry. "Look, Sarah, I didn't mean--"

"Y'know what? Forget it. I only came here hoping you'd be ready to apologize, but clearly you aren't, so I'm just wasting my time."

Elliot stood and stared back at her in disbelief. "Excuse me?! You actually expect _me _to apologize to _you_?!"

"For being an insensitive jerk!" she snapped back.

"I was not being insensitive!" Elliot insisted, walking up to her. "I was _trying_ to be there for you when you needed me!"

"Fat lot of help you were!"

"Hey, I did the best I could! Excuse me if that's not good enough for you!"

"Don't you even _care_ about how I felt?! Don't you care at all about what I was going through?!"

"Of course I care! But dammit, Sarah, that's just the way life is! I'm sorry about your loss, I am, but you have no right to take your anger out on me!"

"I'm not taking anything out on you! You're just being an insensitive jerk!"

"Oh, yeah, like I'm going to believe that!"

"Are you calling me a liar now?!"

"If the shoe fits!"

"How _dare_ you!"

"How dare I what?! You're the one who got pissed off at me over nothing! You're the one who shut me out when I tried to help you through a tough time! You're the one being an ungrateful little baby about it!"

Elliot realized a second too late that he might have pushed it too far; and he was right. That was the last straw for Sarah. Her hand somehow fell on a large, heavy book, and before she even knew what she was doing she'd lifted it and thrown it as hard as she could at Elliot's head. Elliot's eyes widened, and he quickly ducked as his reflexes kicked in. The book sailed clear over him, and instead found a new target: the back of Tedd's head.

_**THUNK!**_

Tedd jerked, but didn't make a sound as his body suddenly rag-dolled, and his head fell forward to slam down upon the remote trigger of his TF Gun.

"…oops…" Sarah said in a small voice.

Inside its case, the TF Gun fired a steady stream of energy, aimed at the dewitchery diamond. The beam hit the crystal, and it began to glow with a strange green light that Elliot couldn't tell if it was the TF Gun's energy or the crystal's own glow. The one lab rat that Tedd had apparently placed inside before getting knocked out squeaked in fear, trying to claw its way out of the box.

"What's happening?!" Sarah demanded, a hint of fear leaking into her own voice.

"It's Tedd's stupid experiment…" Elliot growled. "It's going nuts…"

"Is that the _dewitchery diamond_?!"

"That's the one," he answered, rushing forward.

Sarah hurried after him. "Elliot, don't touch it, you don't know what could happen!"

"I've gotta shut it off somehow, or it might blow up!" he shot back as he reached Tedd and lifted his head off the remote trigger, letting him lean back limply in his chair. On closer inspection, however, the sheer weight of him hitting the button had broken it. The TF Gun was still firing its beam, the glow from the diamond was getting stronger by the second, and now the gun itself was starting to shimmer.

"Damn…the gun's overloading," Elliot muttered, reaching instead for the lid of the case.

"Elliot, wait!" Sarah shouted.

"I have to shut it off before it explodes or something!" he repeated. "Take cover just in case!"

"But what if--"

"Just do it, Sarah!"

Elliot turned his attention back to the case, unaware that Sarah still stood right behind him defiantly. He put a hand into the case, reaching for the trigger…

_**ZZZTTT!!!**_

A shock of green bolted through Elliot's body the second he touched the TF Gun that was overloading with stun energy. Elliot too fell limp, collapsing unconscious to the floor and dragging the whole case down with him.

"ELLIOT!" Sarah cried, running to him, but froze as she watched the contents of the case spill out on the floor. The TF Gun had shut down at the same moment it knocked out Elliot, but the instant the beam cut off, the diamond's glow began to pulse violently.

Half-terrified, Sarah backpedaled a few steps, but she had no time to do anything else. The last thing she was aware of was a brilliant green flash from the diamond's core…and then….

Darkness.

* * *


	4. Kiss and Make Up

**Twin Envy**

**by CidGregor**

* * *

**Chapter Four: Kiss and Make Up  
**

"……_how it happened_……"

A hint of a voice pierced through the haze in his head, and for a moment it made his head pound…who was talking so loud…?

"……_miracle_……_no injuries_……"

The voice faded in and out through his head, and he couldn't recognize it, but it sounded like it might have been male.

"……_will_……_up soon?_"

A decidedly new voice, squeaky and worried now…definitely female…and definitely hurting his head with its high pitch. He winced, and heard himself mutter a little.

"Look, he's coming to…"

"Is he okay?"

"Elliot? Elliot, can you hear me? It's Sarah, sweetie…wake up…"

Elliot groaned irritably and forced his eyes open. A trio of faces hovered over his face: Mister Verres, looking stern and annoyed; the furry half-squirrel figure of Grace Scuridae, glancing back and forth between him and something across the room; and Sarah, who was closest to him, clutching his hand and stroking his cheek.

"Sarah…?" he half-whispered.

The girl nodded rapidly, breaking out into a smile. "Hi…"

"Unnhh…what happened?" he mumbled.

"That's what I'd like to know," Mister Verres said, arms crossed in front of him as he gave Elliot the evil eye.

Elliot shook his head and ran a hand over his face, trying to wake up, and suddenly in all came back to him in a flash. "…Tedd…he was trying to experiment with the diamond, and it went haywire…"

Mister Verres rolled his eyes irritably. "I should have known…that son of mine…can't trust him with anything sometimes…"

"Is he okay?" Elliot asked.

"He's just knocked out," Grace answered. "He hasn't woken up yet, though…"

She glanced worriedly across the room again, and Elliot sat up and followed her gaze to where Tedd still lay limp against the chair from a painful-looking bruise on his head. Beneath his chair, a couple of loose lab rats scurried around, battling over stray bits of food.

"How long have we been out?" Elliot asked.

"A couple of hours, at least…what in the world happened to him…?" Grace wondered aloud, moving over with Mister Verres to tend to her boyfriend and not noticing the guilty expression that grew on Sarah's face.

Elliot didn't miss it though. He gazed back at her, his own expression becoming as stern as Mister Verres' a moment ago. "Sarah…" he began scoldingly.

He didn't get any farther, though, before tears suddenly began to fall from her eyes and she threw her arms tightly around him. "Oh, Elliot…thank god you're okay…"

Elliot raised a surprised eyebrow. "…Um…Sarah?"

Sarah just hugged him tighter, words spilling forth in a rush. "I got so scared, Elliot, I had no idea what that thing did to you, I didn't know if you were gonna ever wake up and what if the last memory of you I ever had was a stupid fight and me throwing a book at you and I'd never be able to live with myself and…oh, Elliot, I'm so sorry…"

Despite his surprise at this sudden reversal, Elliot instinctively hugged her back, stroking her hair comfortingly. "Shh…it's okay, Sarah, I'm fine…look, I'm right here, everything's alright…"

"No it's not," Sarah insisted, sniffling on his shoulder. "I already lost one person I love this week, and I was so afraid I was gonna lose another before I got a chance to fix things between us, because you were right, Elliot, I was so stupid, I was just angry and I took it all out on you and you didn't deserve it at all and I'm really really sorry--"

"Sarah, shh, calm down," Elliot whispered into her ear, a wave of guilt over their earlier argument coming down on him at her words. "It's okay, Sarah, I forgive you…I'm sorry too…I was just being bitter…"

She pulled back from the hug just enough to look at him, eyes shining. "So you don't hate me…?"

Elliot shook his head. "Never."

That smile he loved so much grew on her face again, and with one last sniffle she drew close and pressed her lips to his. Elliot was all too eager to kiss and make up as well, and returned her affections immediately, still stroking her hair.

"I missed you…" she murmured happily against his lips, not letting go of him.

It was a bit of a surprise to Elliot how long she held onto him, how deep she let the kiss go before it finally ended. By the time she released him they both had to take a minute to catch their breath as hey smiled at each other. Elliot didn't mind, though. A little extra intensity was well-warranted in this case. And besides, he certainly enjoyed it.

"He's waking up!" Grace suddenly squealed.

Elliot turned and saw Tedd slowly stirring in the chair, one hand quickly moving to rub the bruise on his head. The moment he seemed fully conscious, Grace tackled him to the ground, hugging him and nuzzling his cheek.

"Yay, you're awake!" she exclaimed.

"Nnghh…head…searing pain…" he whined.

"Oh, Tedd, what on Earth happened to you?"

At that moment Elliot nudged Sarah in the back, who coughed just loud enough to draw their attention.

"Um…I'm sorry, that was my fault…" she admitted. "I, um…kind of snapped at Elliot and threw a book at him, but…I, ah…missed."

"A book?" Tedd muttered. "How did a _book_ do this much damage?"

Sarah looked apologetically at him. "Um…It was a pretty big book. That one by your feet, I think."

Tedd looked, and sure enough the very book she'd thrown lay there. He grabbed the sizeable volume and inspected the title. "…The _Dungeons & Dragons Player's Manual._ Well, that explains things."

"As long as we're explaining things…" Mister Verres suddenly growled from over Tedd's shoulder, making him freeze in place. "Perhaps you could explain to me why you broke into my safe deposit box, took the dewitchery diamond to experiment on it, and otherwise generally disobeyed me?!"

Tedd spun and gave his father a nervous smile. "Ah-heh…well, see…technically there was no 'breaking' involved, so…"

"Uh-huh. Nice try." He hoisted Tedd out from under Grace and off the ground. "You're going to catch those loose lab rats of yours, and then you're going upstairs and staying there. No lab access for a week."

Tedd groaned. "A week?!"

"Keep that up and it'll be two!"

"Aww, man…nothing even happened!"

"But it easily could have! That's why I told you not to mess with it in the first place! It's a miracle we didn't end up with two of all of you! Now go get those rats and get upstairs!"

Tedd groaned again and turned to look for them, but Grace was already two steps ahead. She stood behind him, in her half-cat form now, grinning at him…or at least, grinning as best she could when she had the pair of loose rats dangling by their tails from her teeth.

Elliot chuckled at that, then looked at Sarah. "I guess that's our cue to leave."

Sarah nodded back and glanced at Tedd and Grace. "Sorry again about the book! I owe you one, okay?"

"Yeah yeah, all is forgiven and all that jazz," Tedd muttered, waving them off as he took the rats from Grace and put them in the cage.

A second later Elliot felt a tug on his arm from Sarah, and the two hurried upstairs and out of the house into the night air, glad to be free. They'd had enough of Tedd's place for quite a while.

* * *

Minutes passed as the pair walked together in silence, heading generally back toward Sarah's house. Elliot felt her squeeze his hand gently, and he turned to see her smiling up at him. Elliot couldn't help but smile back, and he realized just how much he'd missed this closeness with her. The fight seemed like a distant memory already, and he was quite glad for that.

"Some day, huh?" he asked.

"Yeah…some day," she echoed.

"So what happened after I got knocked out?"

"Oh…it wasn't too bad," Sarah assured him. "The TF Gun's energy hit me too, but it was already shutting down, so it wasn't very strong. I was only out for a few minutes or so, and when I woke up I ran upstairs to get Grace and Tedd's dad, and then we just...had to wait a couple of hours until that blast wore off on you and Tedd came to." She looked curiously at him. "What was that, anyway? I've never seen the TF Gun do that."

"Oh, that was just Tedd's new 'stun' setting," Elliot explained. "Ever since he heard the whole story of Ellen fighting that super-goo monster and she mentioned the part about her beam stunning it instead of transforming it, he's been trying to copy that effect. He just got it down today, I guess."

Sarah nodded her understanding. "Heh…that Tedd…"

They fell silent for another few minutes as they walked, the only light left around them coming from the street lamps along the sidewalks. A breeze blew by, which gave Sarah an abrupt chill even through her coat, and Elliot realized with a blush that she was only wearing pajamas under it.

He coughed and cleared his throat. "Are you, um…cold?"

He expected her to insist that she wasn't, that he needn't worry about her, and for him to have to insist in return that he offer her an extra coat or something. He was again mildly surprised, then, that she instead nodded, and took his words as an invitation to stop for a moment and wrap herself tightly around him.

"You're warm…" she murmured, closing her eyes and smiling.

"Ah-heh…y-yeah," Elliot stuttered back. He put his own arms around her as well, which seemed to really please her, because in response she nuzzled her cheek against his and sent extremely pleasurable feelings bolting through Elliot's body.

"I'm glad you don't hate me," she said quietly.

Elliot managed to compose himself quickly enough, but still slowly rubbed her back, comforting her. "I could never hate you, Sarah. You know I love you."

"I love you too, Elliot."

Elliot sighed a little. "And…I'm really sorry about…your grandpa…"

"It's okay, Elliot," she said, slowly pulling back from him so they could walk again. "You were right before. It's just…part of life. And I realized that…I can either mope about it and feel sorry for myself…or I can live life to the fullest." She looked pointedly up at him. "I'm done moping. I'm gonna get back to living now."

Elliot smiled back down at her. "Sounds good to me."

A moment later they were at her house, and he was walking her up to the front door.

"Well…guess this is goodnight," Sarah said, a little sadly.

"Yeah…guess so…" Ellito had to agree. "…I'm glad you're feeling better."

"Thanks to you," she replied.

"Heh…no problem," he said with a quiet chuckle. "So…I'll see you tomorrow?"

She nodded. "Yeah…definitely."

"Yeah…so…" He leaned in and pecked her on the cheek. "Goodnight."

Sarah wasn't satisfied with that, apparently, because before he could move away she pulled him around and kissed him full on the lips again, more full and intense than before…more than ever, really.

"Mmm…?" Elliot murmured for a moment before responding. This was new to him, this intensity. Not that he minded at all – far from it, in fact, he was more than eager – but he hadn't expected it. Sarah was just full of surprises today, it seemed.

It didn't last quite as long this time, which Elliot was only aware of because he didn't have to gasp for breath when they parted, but he didn't mind. He was just happy to be kissing her again at all.

So was Sarah, he realized as she traced a finger teasingly over his mouth. "God, I missed those lips…"

"Yeah…me too," Elliot said, smiling.

Sarah pushed her door open and kissed him briefly once more before crossing the threshold. "Goodnight," she whispered.

"Night, Sarah…" he whispered back, and by the time she closed the door and he'd turned to walk away, it was all he could do not to grin like a moron all the way home.

* * *

"Nnnghh…stupid dad…can't believe this…grounded for a week…"

Tedd stomped into his bedroom, slammed the door, and dropped the cage of rats roughly on the dresser, spurring a series of squeaks from its residents. He dropped face-down on the bed and growled into the pillow, thoroughly annoyed. Why did his dad even care? Nothing bad had happened. Everyone was fine, unless he counted the bruise on his head, which really wasn't that bad at all. He'd just been curious. And now he was grounded from the lab for a week and he hadn't even gotten to see the experiment take place thanks to Sarah, even if it had gone nuts. Worse, he couldn't even look at _recordings_ of it; all the equipment for his webcams was in the basement lab as well, and his dad was currently placing a very large bolt and padlock on the door to keep him out.

He turned over and stared at the rat cage, glaring at it. He'd gone through all the trouble of getting lab rats so that his dad would get off his back about testing experimental transformations on himself, and he hadn't gotten to use them at all. Thirteen perfectly good rats, and he hadn't gotten to use them, and he wouldn't for at least the next week…

His thought process suddenly ground to a halt. "Thirteen…?" he said aloud. "I could swear I only got twelve…"

He looked more closely at the cage, counting the rats inside. And then counted again. And again. And every time, he got the same number: thirteen.

A slow grin crossed Tedd's face. "What do you know…maybe this fiasco wasn't a total bust after all…"

* * *


	5. Tardy

**Twin Envy**

_Chapter Five: Tardy_

* * *

"William?"

"Here, ma'am!"

"Gillian?"

"Present."

"Jay?"

"S'up."

"Bob?"

"Tony?"

"Yo."

"Tiffany?"

"It's _Susan_."

"I'm sorry, Tiffany, but I will not accept nicknames. Ahem…Judy?"

Susan Pompoms grimaced, rolled her eyes, and banged her head on the desk. What was _wrong_ with this teacher? Her way of running things was seriously _ancient._ She insisted on calling role every single day, completely refused to allow anyone the use of any nicknames, and Susan seriously suspected that if she could get away with it, she'd give detentions for improper posture.

The older woman peered over her thick glasses, scrolling down the seating chart she mandated upon them. "Elliot?"

No response.

Susan looked up from her desk at that, and stared at Elliot's just in front of her. To her considerable surprise, it stood empty. Elliot, absent? That just…didn't happen. Ever.

The teacher apparently thought along the same lines, because her tone was one of thorough shock. "Elliot Dunkel?"

Again there was no response, and the teacher was halfway toward grabbing her pen and marking him absent before the door swung open and a flushed-looking Elliot hurried in.

"I'm here, I'm here!" he assured the teacher, sitting down and grinning broadly like nothing at all was wrong.

The teacher gave him a disapproving look. "Young man, I expect better from you than tardiness!"

Elliot nodded happily. "I know, I'm sorry, Ms. Harding, I got stuck in traffic. Won't happen again."

"Yes, well, see that it doesn't," Ms. Harding said, and went back to calling role.

Susan, meanwhile, leaned forward to poke Elliot in the back. "Since when is there traffic at seven thirty in the morning?" she muttered.

"Heh…what can I say?" he responded with a suppressed, nervous chuckle. "It was a fluke morning."

Susan narrowed her eyes at the back of his head. "Not that you aren't a horrible liar anyway, but you must think I'm senile if you expect me to believe that."

Elliot waved it off with another unnerved laugh. "Really, it's the truth."

"Drop the act, Elliot, you were not stuck in traffic. You were making out with Sarah."

Elliot twitched involuntarily and looked slowly back at her. "W-what makes you say that?"

"You have a hickey on your neck."

Quick as a flash his hand bolted to cover the offending red mark just above and behind his left shoulder. "Ah…heh…I can explain that…"

"Spare me the sap story," Susan stopped him. "I'm a little more concerned about it making you late. And I'm guessing Sarah was late too. You never let that happen before. Ever."

"Can this wait 'til _after_ class, maybe? I'd rather not get detention on top of a tardy."

Susan sighed in annoyance, but dropped it for the moment. Throughout the entire period she glared at the back of Elliot's head, only half-paying attention to the teacher's droning voice as she lectured them on the workings of the human circulatory system.

A long, tedious hour and a half later, the bell rang, ending first period, and Susan stalked right behind Elliot out the door, making sure he couldn't slip out without her.

"Well?" she probed.

Elliot glanced sideways. "Are you still on that? It's not a big deal," he said evasively. "Why do you care so much?"

"I don't. But you and Sarah should."

"It's just a tardy."

"It was almost an unexcused absence. Would you like to explain to your parents that you got an unexcused absence because you were too busy making out with your girlfriend?"

"Alright, so we were making out, but so what? Big deal!" he argued as he stopped at his locker and exchanged a few books. "So what if we lost track of time for a minute, one time? It was a fluke. Quit worrying about it."

"Ugh…fine," Susan relented. "As long as it's not the start of a pattern."

"It's not, don't worry!" Elliot assured her. "We're just…y'know…catching up on lost time from the fight."

Susan rolled her eyes. "Sometimes I'm glad I'm single…love makes people stupid."

"Har-har, very funny," Elliot threw back, smirking. "I'm going to class. See you at lunch."

He shut the door and stalked off to his next class, leaving Susan to stand by his locker staring curiously after him. He wasn't lying, not anymore…and his reasoning made sense, and he promised it wasn't the start of a pattern, and for his part, she believed him…and if she knew Sarah, the girl would calm down after a little while and things would get back to normal. Everything seemed right and sensible and logical.

…_So why do I still get a weird feeling about it?_

* * *

"Tedd?"

"Yeff?"

"Have you noticing anything…_different_…about Elliot and Sarah recently?"

"Mmm…nufink 'oo diffint…'y?"

"Chew and swallow, Tedd."

"Oh…fowy."

Tedd gulped down a mouthful of turkey sandwich and chased it with chocolate milk, wiping his mouth on his sleeve. "You were saying?"

Susan chose to ignore his less-than-sanitary manners for the moment. "I was asking if Elliot and Sarah seemed different to you."

Tedd shrugged. "I haven't noticed anything different…why?"

"Because we're sitting here talking about them when they're five feet away from us, and they're not hearing a word we say because they're too busy swooning over each other."

Tedd turned from Susan to look at the couple in question. Indeed, neither Elliot nor Sarah seemed to be aware that their friends were talking about them, or that they were even sitting there at all. They were squeezed close together on the bench, foreheads resting against each other as they whispered and giggled to themselves and stole quick little kisses every few seconds.

"Ugh…I'm gonna hurl…" Susan grunted.

"So they're a little…extra affectionate," Tedd said. "It's not unusual. They just made up two days ago. Let 'em enjoy being okay again."

"It's disgusting," Susan countered. "At least before now they kept the sappy stuff private. Now they're all over each other no matter where they are."

"Like I said, they were hating each other's guts for a good couple of days. That's a lot of unused sap building up. I'm sure they'll be back to normal after they spend it all."

"They'd better…'cause they're seriously pushing my tolerance level of Public Display of Affection."

"Oh, stop being a grump, you're not the one who got grounded for a week," Tedd said as he stuffed another chunk of sandwich in his mouth. "T'y an' 'ee 'appy fo' 'em."

"Do that again and I'm going to shove that whole sandwich down your throat and choke you with it."

Tedd simpered. "…'oint 'aken…er…opff…fowy…"

Susan only rolled her eyes and glanced back at the other two, who were now whispering rather excitedly, and Susan was pretty sure she heard the words 'broom closet' somewhere in the exchange. A second later the couple stood hand in hand, Sarah tugging Elliot's arm playfully.

"We're gonna take off, guys," Elliot announced as she pulled him away from the table, waving. "Later!"

They were gone in moments, leaving Susan to stare suspiciously after them. There was something different there, alright…she didn't know if it was a good different or a bad different, but it was there…and unlike Tedd, she wasn't so sure it could all be chalked up to built-up affections. Something else was going on…

…_but what?_

* * *

God, he loved kissing her.

His back was up against the far corner of the tiny broom closet, his hands firmly latched around Sarah's waist and holding her close to his body. Her hands were slipped around his neck and up into his hair, delicate fingers running through the dark auburn strands that he made sure to take extra good care of, because he knew she loved to run her hands through it just like she was doing now. Her own hair was splashed over her shoulders, the bright blonde a stark contrast to his own, but no less beautiful; and the skin of her arms sliding along his neck was like a silk scarf wrapping itself around him and making him feel like he held royalty in his arms.

Of course, none of this he really noticed at that particular moment, because he was far too occupied by the feel of her lips mingling with his. At first they had been the gentler, more tender kisses he was used to, that they'd generally always shared. But just like she had two nights ago after the lab accident, the kisses grew deeper, longer, more intense, the longer their embrace held. Which was quite a while.

It was such new territory to Elliot; never territory that he minded exploring, not at all, but new nonetheless. It was entirely different from kissing Nanase, at the very least. There had been something lacking with her. He hadn't known what it was then, but he knew now that some level of passion had always been absent there. He knew it because it was far from absent in Sarah's kisses. It was downright electric with her, and her lips were just so red and full and…and was that cherry lip balm he tasted? God he loved that…

Somewhere in a distant part of his mind, he became aware that the bell was ringing for the end of lunch. It'd be about five minutes before it rang again and made them late for class, so reluctantly he broke the kiss, which briefly made her whimper like a hurt puppy.

"I know, I know," Elliot said, just as disappointed, "but we really gotta go to class, we were already late once today…"

Sarah made a pretend-whining sound. "I hope you're not saying you'd rather go to class than stay here with me," she said playfully.

"Not even a little," Elliot assured her. "But we still have to go, or Susan's gonna get on our case about it again."

"You too? How'd she know?"

He rubbed a bit nervously at the reddened hickey mark on his neck. "She noticed your little present…heh…"

"Aww, she just wishes she had one," Sarah giggled.

Elliot smiled back. "Okay, now we _really _have to go."

"I know…" she murmured sadly.

"Hey, c'mon, it's only two more periods and then we're home free. We can spend the whole rest of the day together if you want."

Sarah's mood shifted quickly at that prospect, and she smiled broadly at him. "That sounds like a great way to spend a Monday."

"I thought so too," Elliot said back, his hands rubbing her hips still, which she seemed to really like. She eventually drew back, though, to turn to the door.

"Well…see you after school, then," she said, hand on the knob.

"Oh, hey, wait!" Elliot suddenly stopped her with a hand on her shoulder. "I almost forgot…I wanna ask you something."

She turned back to him eagerly. "What is it?"

Elliot took a long breath. "Well…y'know how the Random Dudes are in town this Saturday on their concert tour?"

Sarah nodded, grinning. "Oh, I LOVE the Random Dudes, they're my favorite band!"

Elliot smiled. "Yeah…I know." He reached slowly into his jacket pocket and drew out two cards of laminated paper. "That's why I got these."

Sarah's expression was blank for a handful of heartbeats, and for a brief moment he wondered if perhaps she hadn't quite heard him. But then her eyes went wide and her voice filled with excitement as she stared at the words on the cards.

"You got BACKSTAGE PASSES to the Random Dudes?!"

Elliot nodded. "That I did."

Sarah marveled at them. "Elliot, these must've cost a fortune!"

Elliot waved it off. "Aww, it wasn't that bad…I've been saving up for it."

Sarah's eyes sparkled. "This is really for real?!"

Elliot grinned, slipping them back into his pocket. "Mmhmm. You, me, and the band. Saturday night. Ten O'clock. What do you say?"

"I say it's a date!" she squealed, and leapt into his arms again and bumped him into a stack of brooms and he almost stumbled into the mop bucket, but he didn't care. Seeing her smiling face was so worth it.

_**Brrrriiiiii!!**_

Elliot gasped. "Crap, we're late again!"

Sarah gasped too and hopped off him. They hurried out of the cramped closet together, rushing hand-in-hand down the hall toward their classes, and skidded to a momentary stop just outside the door to Elliot's.

He squeezed Sarah's hand briefly. "I'll meet you right outside after school, 'kay?"

"Kay," she breathed, and gave him a quick _smack_ on the lips. "Love you!"

"Love you too!" he called as she hurried off, and he ducked into his own classroom, and very nearly managed to successfully sneak into his seat unnoticed before the teacher paused from scribbling the quadratic formula on the board to look out at the class, caught him, and gave him another tardy.

* * *

Comments and critiques welcomed and appreciated, as always.


	6. Suspicious Behaviors

**Twin Envy**

_Chapter Six: Suspicious Behaviors_

* * *

"HeeeeYAAAHH!"

For a heartbeat or two, Elliot felt his body become weightless as his body flew through the air. But an instant later gravity kicked in and he fell roughly to the floor, tumbling and rolling a couple of times before coming to a stop on his back.

"Are you sure you're okay, Elliot?"

Elliot sat up and turned to his opponent, grinning despite his defeat. "Never better. Why?"

Justin Tolkiberry frowned concernedly. "No offense, but you should be wiping the floor with me. You're way stronger than I am."

"And?" Elliot said, rather distantly. "You're probably getting better."

"Elliot, that's the third time I've thrown you down in five minutes."

Elliot blinked in surprise. "Really? That many?"

"You're not even paying attention to the match?!" he demanded indignantly.

"Oh…heh…S-sorry, Justin," Elliot stammered. "I've just kinda had a lot on my mind lately…"

"Funny. I would've guessed you'd gone brain-dead."

Elliot turned toward the second voice, one with a much more firm edge to it, and saw the intimidating, red-headed figure of Nanase Kitsune looming over him, a hard look in her dark green eyes.

"Brain-dead?" Elliot echoed. "What makes you say that?"

"Oh, not much…just the fact that you've barely been reachable for the last five days, and whenever one of us _does_ get a hold of you, you're not yourself at all."

Elliot raised one eyebrow. Not himself? What was she talking about? He hadn't changed at all. At least, he didn't think so. Maybe he was spending a little more time with Sarah than he used to, but could he really be blamed for that? They _did_ just get over a fight, after all, and they were a lot closer than ever now. They were exploring a lot of new firsts that they'd been too shy to consider before. Just last night, in fact, they'd snuggled together under a blanket and watched movies until they fell asleep in each other's arms. That had definitely been nice to wake up to…her head resting on his chest while she slept, her lips slightly puckered at first and then spreading wide as she yawned cutely. The images hadn't left his mind all day. Which, he figured, was probably why he hadn't been paying much attention to his spar with Justin.

"Alright, so I've been a bit preoccupied the last few days, but--" Elliot started to admit.

"A _bit preoccupied_?" Nanase scoffed. "Elliot, you've barely been able to tear your lips off of Sarah's to go to classes! Susan told me what happened on Monday. TWO tardy warnings, because you were busy making out with her in the broom closet?"

"They made out in a broom closet?" Justin echoed, with a note of jealousy that Elliot was far too indignant to notice.

"Why is everyone suddenly making my personal life out to be public business?!" he demanded. "It's between me and her, alright?! And besides, Sarah's not some evil, conniving, spiteful chick out to wreck our lives. This isn't _Mean Girls_. She's my friend. She's _your_ friend. Why's she suddenly the bad guy?"

Nanase rolled her eyes and sighed. "Look, Elliot, we're not…_criticizing_. We're not trying to butt into your personal business, and we're certainly not trying to vilify Sarah. We're just…concerned."

"Concerned about _what_?.!"

"That you're letting your relationship with Sarah start to take over your life."

Elliot growled. "You don't know what you're talking about."

"Think about it, Elliot! Ever since last weekend you've barely talked to any of us except Sarah, you were tardy twice on Monday because you were too busy making out with her…"

"You're neglecting your martial arts training," Justin added helpfully.

"And I'm hearing you ditched Tedd and Susan entirely today so you two could slip out and go skinny dipping," Nanase finished.

Elliot paled. "We did NOT go skinny dipping!"

"Well, to be fair, that was Tedd's theory, so no one really believed it, but him _and_ Susan still said you cut out early with her!"

"How the heck would they know that?!"

"Because you always give them a ride home at the end of the day! Except today you ditched them and left them to _walk_ home!"

That, Elliot realized with a sharp pang of guilt, he could not argue against. It hadn't even occurred to him until right then, he'd been so preoccupied by his plans with Sarah, but Nanase was right; he _had_ completely forgotten about giving Susan and Tedd a ride home today.

"Are you getting it, Elliot? You're slipping," Nanase said. "You're starting to put your alone time with Sarah before your responsibilities, not only to school, but to your friends." She paused. "…What _did_ you and Sarah dash off to do, anyway?"

Elliot ran an embarrassed hand through his hair and stared at the ground. "We…wanted to catch a movie, and…ended up…" his voice fell to an unintelligible mumble.

Nanase clapped her hands sharply in front of his face. "Speak up!"

Elliot grimaced. "Making out in the back of the theater, okay?!"

"Wow, that must've been some movie to ditch your friends for," Nanase said snidely.

"Alright already, you made your point!" Elliot growled. "Enough with the guilt trip, I get it, I'm sorry!"

"Don't apologize to _me_. Tell it to Susan and Tedd."

Elliot silently fumed; half because he couldn't believe they were butting into his relationship so much…and half because he couldn't deny that they were mostly right. He'd been giving Sarah so much of his attention the last five days…almost all of it, actually. Ever since their fight ended they'd hardly been separate from each other…and Nanase was right, everything and everyone else had taken a backseat. And he never really felt sorry for it until now. It never even occurred to him, really, he was so consumed by his relationship. There was something about Sarah lately that was just…intoxicating. She'd always been more interested in their emotional and mental connections in the past – their open dialogue, their shared interests, and perhaps a tender kiss here and there – but since the fight, the physical aspects had taken a definite leap forward. Like she'd thrown off a conservative outer skin and become comfortable with physical closeness as much as with mental and emotional.

None of this was _bad_, of course, not by a long-shot…it wasn't like they were pushing each other into something they weren't ready for…but Nanase was still right. They'd enjoyed the after-fight make-up session long enough, and it was time to put his life back into balance.

"Elliot? You okay?"

He shook himself back into focus, and realized Nanase was looking concernedly down at him now.

"I don't mean to hurt your feelings or anything, I just--"

"No, you're right," Elliot stopped her. "You're absolutely right. I owe Tedd and Susan an apology…and no more neglecting friends or being tardy at school, I promise."

Nanase studied him for a moment, and ultimately allowed a small smile. "See, that wasn't so hard."

He turned back to Justin as he finally got to his feet again. "So…where were we?"

"Oh, probably the part where you start handing my rear-end to me on a platter again," he said, laughing good-naturedly.

Elliot laughed too. "Sounds good to me." He sunk into a fighting stance. "But hey, you're still up by three moves. Maybe it'll hold."

"Yeah, sure…"

And the spar resumed.

* * *

"…So y'see, Mister Verres, it's really important that I get this book, 'cause I hafta read it for English class, except I left it down in the basement, and I can't get it now that you put the lock on the door 'cause of the whole grounding thing, so I'd really really _reeeeally_ appreciate it if you could open up the basement just for a minute so I can get it…please?"

Mr. Verres blinked amusedly at Grace, a small smile appearing on his gruff expression. "Really, Grace, you're far too formal. You aren't the one in trouble. Of course you can go get your book." And without so much as a hint of protest he reached into his pocket and handed the half-squirrel a shiny silver key.

Grace blinked in surprise, staring at the object in her outstretched hand. "Really? Just like that?"

"It wouldn't be fair of me to bar you from the basement for trouble you didn't cause, much less prevent you from completing your studies. Now go on. Just bring the key back when you're done with it."

Grace stood stock still for a moment before recovering. "Um…alright…I will…ah…hehe…thanks…"

She turned away from the living room and scampered quickly over to the basement door, marveling at how simple the first stage of her little mission had been. For all of Tedd's pre-mission prep talk she'd expected him to question her more. He must've really trusted her.

Great. Now she felt guilty for taking advantage. Boy, Tedd was lucky she actually _did_ need to get a book out of the basement, so she hadn't had to lie, too.

She slipped inside, flicked on the light, and closed the basement door behind her. Immediately she looked down at her wrist, and began talking into her watch. Or at least it looked like a watch.

"Okay, I'm inside," she whispered. "Now what?"

A brief burst of static sounded before Tedd's voice rang through it. "_Now you just gotta find my cameras and bring 'em upstairs. Dad'll never notice they're gone. You remember where they are?_"

"Yeah, but….what do you need them for?"

"_I can't stand waiting until Saturday for me to be un-grounded! I gotta know exactly what went on down there the day of that weird accident, and those cameras should have recorded the whole thing!_"

"Why do you wanna know so bad?"

"_All part of being a scientist, Grace. The never-ending thirst for knowledge._"

"Well then, just for your information, I don't like taking advantage of your dad's trust like this, so you're lucky I actually do need to get stuff from down here for school."

Her words actually seemed to give Tedd pause, because he didn't say anything for a while, which started to worry her. "Tedd?"

"…_I'm sorry, Grace, I didn't even think of that. If you're not comfortable doing this, just forget about the cameras and come on back upstairs. If it upsets you at all, it's not worth it to me._"

Grace sighed and smiled a little. "You're a sweetheart, Tedd…but it's okay. You know I'd do anything for you."

"…_You sure?_"

"Of course, Tedd. I love you."

She could almost hear the smile appear on his face. "_I love you too. Thank you, Grace._"

"No problem. I'll be back in a flash."

She clicked off the watch and turned her eyes to the ceiling, where several of Tedd's cameras were mounted. She couldn't see them at all from where she was, but according to Tedd that was the point. They were small and unobtrusive. She'd have to get up close before she could recognize any of them.

Mentally following Tedd's directions, she crawled nimbly up onto the desk to where the first camera was placed. She peered closely at the ceiling, searching, but at first she saw nothing…until a small spark caught her attention.

Her head whipped around to look in the direction of the tiny flash, and as soon as her eyes fell on the source of the flash, they widened in shock and wonder.

"What on Earth…?"

* * *

Tedd, meanwhile, paced back and forth in his room, his computer set up and ready to download the data from his cameras for detailed study and analysis. Despite his brief wave of guilt, he couldn't contain his excitement at the prospect of finally figuring out what happened that strange Saturday evening. The wait had been killing him, and it was a relief that he'd managed to come up with this plan to cut the wait a few days short. If that extra rat meant what he thought it did…

His pacing was at last cut off by Grace's return, and he practically leapt at the door to let her in when she knocked.

"Did you find them?" he asked excitedly. His excitement faded almost instantly, however, when he realized the troubled, confused look on her squirrelly face as she came inside. "…what happened? What's wrong?"

"I don't know," Grace answered quietly. "It doesn't make any sense…"

"What doesn't make sense?"

Her hands, which were currently wrapped around a small cardboard box, reached for the lid and pulled it off in slow motion. Almost warily, Tedd gazed inside, and blanched.

"What the hell…?"

All six of his cameras were sitting there in the box, except each of them was broken apart into several pieces, some with wires ripped clean out that sparked now and then with the remnants of their battery power. No camera was torn into less than three pieces.

"I found them all like this," Grace said, snapping him back into focus. "I don't know how, but someone…maybe some_thing_…wrecked all the cameras."

Tedd lifted the pieces out carefully, looking at each of them with an intense stare, then setting them one by one on his desk. _Come on… _he silently pleaded. _Please let there be just one left…that's all I need……Aha!_

"It can't just be an accident…someone had to have known that these were here and broken them. But…who would do something like that…?" Grace wondered aloud.

"Maybe…someone who doesn't want anyone to know what happened down there," Tedd said grimly, removing a small piece of something from three of the cameras. "Problem is they weren't thorough enough…I hope."

"What do you mean?"

He held up the three objects. "Digital memory cards. There was one in every camera. The other three were totally shattered, but these ones weren't. They're damaged…but with a couple of days work, I might be able to salvage some of the data. With any luck, one of them can tell us what we need to know."

"But Tedd…the only ones who were there at the time were--"

"Me, Sarah and Elliot. I know."

"…Tedd…you don't think…"

Tedd was silent.

"…Tedd, what possible reason could--"

"I'm not jumping to any conclusions. I'm going to fix these memory cards, and I'm going to figure this out for sure."

"But they wouldn't, Tedd! They wouldn't!"

"…I don't think they would either," he said, staring at the cards.

"……"

"…and that's what worries me…"

* * *

Author's Notes: Beginning at this point, this story diverges into two noticeably different directions. Though the ending is the same, I leave the option to choose one path or the other (or both) to follow.

To read the rest of this fic as it was first written, continue reading as normal by clicking 'next.'

Conversely, please skip ahead to FFN-Chapter-11 to read the rest of this fic in its 'alternate ending' form, which chronicles my ORIGINAL plan for the story before certain circumstances forced some retooling. (fair warning: this path contains slightly more mature content and higher levels of drama than the initial version).

Comments and critiques welcomed and appreciated, as always.


	7. Sarah's Secret

**Twin Envy**

_Chapter Seven: Sarah's Secret_

* * *

"Okay, Elliot. You can do this. It's just a date like any other. We'll go out, we'll have fun at the concert, we'll have a nice romantic walk back in the moonlight, we'll kiss goodnight and go home. Simple."

Sure. Simple. Now it totally made sense that he was standing in her living room, shaking as though he were planning on proposing or something.

He shook his head sharply. Oh yeah. _That_ was an image that did wonders to calm his nerves.

He glanced warily at his watch. What was taking her so long? It was already nine-thirty. He heard girls liked to make guys wait for them before dates, but they kind of had a deadline to follow. The concert started in half an hour, and it wasn't going to wait for them.

Curiously he wandered over to her room, intending to politely ask if she was ready yet and hope she'd get the hint. As he approached, though, he heard her mumbling inside, rustling something around.

"Get…back…in there…" he managed to interpret. Curious, he raised a fist and knocked lightly. She didn't respond, but the impact did nudge the door open a crack; apparently she'd left it slightly ajar. It occurred to him a second too late that he probably shouldn't peek in, in case she was still dressing, but he'd already looked by the time that thought registered.

Fortunately she was decent, as best he could tell through the tiny crack. She was trying to close the door of her standing wardrobe, but it was apparently so full she was having difficulty doing so. It took her another few seconds of grunting and struggling to finally get the door closed and turn the lock with a breath of relief. Figuring that was why she hadn't heard him knock, he tried again, and this time she responded.

"Sorry, sorry! I'm ready!" she breathed as she flung the door open. For a long moment, Elliot could only gape at her as she stood there in the doorway dressed in a pure white, low-cut blouse, dainty heels that almost eliminated their height difference, and a denim skirt that was short enough to give Elliot a really, _really_ good view of her legs. Her hair was tied back in a short ponytail save for two bunches toward the front, which she'd tucked behind her ears so as not to hide her face, which by itself gave Elliot goose-bumps thanks to the gorgeous smile she wore.

He managed to get over this initial shock when he heard her giggle at him, and he grinned like a fool. "You look incredible."

Sarah laughed again. "You don't look too bad yourself."

Elliot shrugged modestly. "What, this old getup?" he gestured to his casually-formal khaki pants and black button-up shirt. S'nothing special."

"I think it looks perfect."

Elliot couldn't help but keep grinning. He gestured behind her. "Having trouble with your wardrobe there?"

"Oh, no, nothing big," Sarah quickly assured him. "Just a little overfull."

"Funny, that used to be pretty empty. What made you start using it?"

Sarah shrugged. "It came from my grandparents, so I figured…y'know, now that grandpa's gone…I should make use of it…it's as good a way as any to keep his memory alive, right?"

Elliot nodded. "Still, that door looks like it could use some work. Maybe Tedd and I could--"

"No, no, really, it's fine!" she interrupted him. "I'd rather not have anyone mess with it. Don't worry, I'll manage."

Elliot nodded again and smiled. "Alright, fair enough. So you're ready to go, then?"

Sarah nodded quickly. "Definitely, let's go!"

Elliot took her hand in his with another jolt of goose-bumps, and together they headed out on foot, as the concert was being held in the park, a mere fifteen minute walk from Sarah's house. All the way Sarah held tight to Elliot, moving from simply holding his hand to wrapping her arms around one of his and half-leaning on him as they neared the park, and Elliot couldn't help but mentally pat himself on the back for putting together such a perfect evening. Already she looked so utterly happy, he knew the money he'd invested was totally worth it. And the concert hadn't even started yet.

_Whoop…scratch that…_ Elliot corrected himself as he heard the band play a few opening licks. His hold on Sarah tightened. "C'mon, they're starting!"

Sarah broke out into a frenzied grin and ran with him inside, backstage passes in hand…

* * *

_**ZZZZHHHKKKKTTT!!**_

"GAH!" Tedd jerked back from his desk, shaking out his suddenly numb hand. "Dammit!"

A second later he heard Grace bolt into the room. "Tedd! Are you okay?! What was that noise?!"

"I'm fine, I'm fine, just a little electric shock…" Tedd muttered, and let out an annoyed growl, glaring at his work bench. A digital camera memory card sat there, connected to a small data reader, both of which were suddenly blackened and smoking.

Grace clutched the affected hand and quickly began massaging it with both of her own. "Tedd, you gotta be more careful, you could've really gotten hurt…"

"I _have_ to figure this out, Grace…" Tedd insisted. "I have to know what happened down there." He grumbled again. "Damn…I really thought I had that one…stupid crossed wires…lucky it didn't fry the computer too…"

"You're lucky it didn't fry _you_," Grace admonished.

"I promise, Grace, I'm fine," he assured her with a squeeze of his hand that was slowly regaining feeling. "Just annoyed…the first card was damaged a little too much to salvage, and then this one fried itself before I could get at its data records…"

He removed the third and final memory card from its place in a small protective box, and held it up in front of him. "…I just have one left to work with. If I screw up with this one…I'll never find out who broke the cameras in the first place."

Grace squeezed his hand back. "You'll get it, Tedd. I know you can do it."

"I really hope so…" he murmured, and picked up his tools. "Grab the backup card reader…time to start from scratch…"

* * *

It was long after midnight before the final chords played, Sarah got to shake the hands of the Random Dudes, and Elliot had insisted on getting her a souvenir jacket before they left because she couldn't stop shivering. But they didn't care. It had been an incredible show.

"That has got to be the best concert I've been to in my _entire life_," Sarah gushed as they passed through the park gates and started their walk home.

"I can see why you like those guys," Elliot agreed. "I gotta admit I didn't know too many songs by them, but they were really good. That was some impressive guitar work."

Sarah grinned at that. "God, that last guitar solo…hearing it on their CD is one thing, but hearing it _live_ just blows the CD out of the water!"

Elliot nodded along. "I'm gonna be tone deaf tomorrow, but you're right, it's totally worth it."

"And meeting them up close…I had no idea they were such _hunks_!"

"You're not gonna run off and be a groupie, are you?" Elliot joked.

Sarah socked him in the arm with a giggle. "You're mean!"

"I'm sorry!" Elliot laughed back. "You never tell me _I'm_ a hunk, but you'll say that to them? Pardon me for getting concerned."

"I don't _need_ to tell you you're a hunk, you already know you are," Sarah threw back.

"Oooh, nice save," Elliot smirked, and pulled her tight into his arms from behind. "I guess I can forgive you admiring other guys just this once."

"Psh…like you wouldn't do the same thing if they were a bunch of hot chicks," she said as she leaned back into his arms.

He swiftly leaned in and kissed her cheek. "They'd have nothing on you."

"Oh, you're just saying that."

It's true," Elliot assured her, and grinned again. "Besides, I don't think I'd like my eye-candy girls to be quite that hairy."

Sarah snorted with laughter. "Elliot, practically all rock bands are that hairy!"

"I rest my case."

They both laughed again, and Elliot let go of her so they could continue walking. They did so in silence for a handful of moments, glancing at each other every few paces and smiling.

"Elliot?" Sarah spoke up at last, quieter than before.

"Yeah?"

"…How much did you spend on those tickets?"

Elliot winced slightly, almost invisibly, and to his relief Sarah didn't seem to notice. "It was nothing, Sarah, I was happy to--"

"How much did you spend?"

Elliot stiffened a little. He didn't want to say…but he couldn't lie either. Aside from the fact that he was awful at lying and she'd see right through it anyway, it didn't sound like a brilliant idea to lie to his girlfriend. So for a long moment he was silent. And that much, Sarah saw through.

"…It's a lot, isn't it?"

"You're worth every penny, Sarah," he responded instantly. "If it makes you happy, it's always worth it, and those guys are your absolute favorite band, and I knew you've wanted to see them for the longest time. So I figured I might as well go all out with it. Besides, it's not like I was gonna spend it on anything else anyway…I just saved up for a while, is all. Don't worry about it, okay?"

"Elliot, you don't need to--"

"I know. But I wanted to." He took her hands in his, and stepped in front of her. "I love you. And I will do anything to see you happy."

Sarah's cheeks colored a little despite the cold. "…I love you too."

"I know," he said.

"Just…stop totally killing your wallet for me, okay?"

Elliot smiled a little. "I'll try to stop showering you with gifts."

She smiled back, and they walked onward again. All too soon, they'd reached Sarah's house, and they stood together on the doorstep, hand in hand, neither of them wanting to stop gazing at the other.

"Well…guess this is goodnight…" Elliot said quietly.

"…It was wonderful, Elliot…" she almost whispered. "…probably the best date I've ever had. Thank you…"

"You're welcome…"

He leaned in to kiss her goodnight just as she did the same, and they met halfway, holding each other gently and kissing with a soft and tender touch.

At least, at first.

When the kiss didn't end there, it grew stronger, more heated. Their hold on each others' bodies closed in, and they pressed themselves tightly together as they stumbled back slightly to lean against the doorframe. Elliot felt goose-bumps shoot across his skin as Sarah's hands slid under his shirt to trace soft circles on his back, and when he responded with a gentle stroke along her hips, she had to break their kiss just to catch her breath.

"Wow…" Elliot whispered.

"Yeah…wow…" Sarah added.

Elliot started to tell himself he should probably say goodnight now, but his body just didn't want to cooperate. His hands still rested on Sarah's hips, holding her body very close to his. _Her_ hands were slowly removing themselves from his shirt and sliding over his shoulders up to his cheeks. Their faces hovered bare inches apart.

"Sarah…I…"

"Shut up, Elliot…"

She closed the distance in a second, and their lips were joined again. She was kissing him with that fiery passion again, that incredible driving force that left him completely uncaring about who might see or what classes they were late for. It was downright electric, and even his rational brain couldn't say no to the feeling. Maybe it was this kiss…maybe it was the date…maybe it was them still getting over that stupid fight…maybe some combination of all three…but he had never been more attracted to her than he was at that moment.

Before he could stop her, her lips slid off his and trailed slowly across his cheek. A second later they brushed against his ear, and in the barest of whispers, Sarah said four little words that sent him into near-total brain failure.

"_My parents aren't home…_"

And he offered no resistance, no resistance at all as she pushed the front door open, pulled him wide-eyed across the threshold, and shut it behind him.

* * *

"Come on…c'mon c'mon c'mon…"

"Careful, careful…"

"I know, I know…just a little…more…there."

Tedd set his tools down and lifted the memory card up to the light, as though inspecting it. "What do you think…?"

"Looks okay to me," Grace said from over his shoulder.

"It better be…I've done all I can," Tedd admitted. He lowered the card and slid it swiftly into his backup card reader. "Here goes nothing…"

He started the card reader and looked at his computer, hoping it would bring up the video file he knew was stored there. He waited…waited…

_**Blip!**_

The media player popped up and began loading the file.

"YES!" Tedd exclaimed.

"You did it!" Grace squealed, squeezing his shoulder.

"It's not six angles at once, but it's something!" Tedd said, and stared intently at the screen. "Alright, you gorgeous piece of technology, show me what you got!"

And show him it did. The camera image filled the screen a second later, showing the pair an angle of the basement directly facing the computer. It was currently at the beginning of the recording, and all he could see was himself at the computer, talking to Elliot, whose feet were just barely visible at the far right edge of the image. At least, he assumed they were talking, from the movements of his mouth. The audio, apparently, had not survived the damage.

"This is too far back…" he murmured, and sped up the recording, until he left the frame briefly and returned carrying a cage full of rats and looking a bit awkward. He let go of the fast-forward button at that moment and let the recording play normally as he placed one rat from the cage inside the clear case containing one of his TF Guns and the dewitchery diamond.

"Is this it?" Grace asked.

"Yeah, this is it…you can't see it here, but Sarah and Elliot are arguing by the stairs…any second now Sarah'll--"

Right on cue, a large and heavy book was suddenly flung into view, smacking him in the back of the head. Tedd himself winced and instinctively rubbed the offended spot as he watched himself pitch forward onscreen and strike the TF Gun's activation button hard enough to break it. The TF Gun began firing its experimental new stun beam into the dewitchery diamond, and before long both were glowing and pulsing with bright green transformation energy.

"Whoa…"

A second later Elliot appeared in the camera's view, reaching into the case for the TF Gun. The instant he touched it, a shock bolted through his body, the effects of the stun setting taking hold instantly. He tumbled to the floor, dragging the whole case to the floor with him, and as the TF Gun shut itself down, Tedd gazed at the violently strong energy pulsing from the diamond. Sarah appeared next, rushing toward Elliot's fallen form, but she froze upon seeing the diamond and backpedaled a few steps to the corner of the camera's vision. A second later the diamond's energy exploded outward, a series of beams shooting out from it in completely random directions. A handful came within inches of hitting his and Elliot's limp bodies, but one struck Sarah dead-on, throwing her backward out of the camera's view before the energy burned out.

"That had to hurt…" Grace murmured sympathetically. "…Weird…I could've sworn she said the TF Gun knocked her out…"

A handful of minutes passed in silence, nothing moving in the screen at all. Tedd tracked forward quickly, rolling the empty minutes along and watching intently for the slightest change…

"Wait, go back, I saw something!" Grace blurted out. Tedd complied without an argument and rewound the recording a bit, letting it play again at normal speed. Grace leaned forward over his shoulder, narrowing her eyes at the screen. "…There!" she pointed.

"What is it?" Tedd demanded, backing up a few frames and playing the video again in slow motion.

"Watch your computer…it's got the webcam window open…right there! See it?!"

Tedd did indeed see it this time, though he had to strain to do so. His basement computer showed all six of his webcams' lines of vision, and though the images themselves were far too small and grainy to see what they each displayed, he saw one of the six squares suddenly turn into nothing but grey fuzz.

"Someone just broke one of the cameras…" Grace realized. Her eyes widened a bit more as the tape continued. "There goes another one!"

"Whoever broke the cameras is in there, right here…" Tedd agreed. "Which means when they reach the camera that this card was pulled from…or if they pass through this one's line of vision while breaking another one…we'll have our vandal…"

And right on cue, a figure appeared from the right side of the camera. A girl of average height, and unmistakable short, blonde hair. Carrying his precious TF Gun. Snatching the camera off the top of his computer, dropping it to the floor, and slamming her foot down upon it.

Grace's eyes widened in disbelief. "Sarah…?"

"What the hell is she doing?!" Tedd burst out, his expression rapidly degenerating into one of fury. "That's over a thousand dollars worth of equipment! AND she's stealing the TF Gun!"

"She wouldn't…Sarah wouldn't do that…"

"Grace, look at her, she IS doing it!"

"Tedd, I've been friends with Sarah for only a few weeks, and even _I_ know she wouldn't do this! You've known Sarah for years! You _know_ our Sarah wouldn't do something like this!"

"Grace, the video doesn't lie! That's Sarah on that screen there, destroying and stealing my stuff for no good reason! There is absolutely _no way_ that's _not _Sarah!"

But abruptly he froze, his rage vanishing and quickly being replaced with a shocked awe.

"…Unless…"

* * *

She blinked her eyes open, yawned, and stretched out her limbs, but pulled them back under the quilt before too long; it was a bit chilly still. Though it _was_ four in the morning.

Sarah smiled broadly, content with herself. Thing were going absolutely perfect. She'd made up from the fight, brought their relationship to a higher level, and gotten him to fall even more hopelessly in love with her than ever. And it had only taken her a week.

Yes…change was good, she thought.

She sat up from her spot on the living room couch, holding the thick quilt to her chest, and looked back at where she had been lying. Nestled nice and cozy beside her spot was the shirtless figure of Elliot, snoring lightly as he lay on his side. She smiled coyly as she admired his upper body, and her eyes wandered a little farther downward, to his pants. Yes, they were still on, and so were hers…she hadn't pushed him _that_ far. She knew he wouldn't have gone for it anyway. Not yet. But he hadn't minded one bit when she let him see her topless for the first time. Oh, the look on his face had been priceless…and so was his expression when she spied the small, crescent-moon-shaped birthmark way down his back, almost on his butt. It was this that she was looking at again now. She'd never seen it before. It was almost…cute. She'd have to remember to tease him about it later.

She swung her legs out from under the quilt and grabbed her shirt off the floor, fitting it back on before she let go of the quilt and laid it over Elliot's body. He'd be fine there for the night. No one was coming home for a while yet, and she had something to check on of a rather…private nature.

She left Elliot where he was and crossed the living room to the hallway. She turned into the door farthest down the hall. Her room.

_Thump. Th-thump._

The wardrobe doors were rattling.

"Persistent little pest, aren't you…" Sarah muttered, her expression darkening. She strode over to her dresser, dug under a pile of old jeans, and drew out a familiar device: one of Tedd's prized TF Guns. She carried it with her to the wardrobe, which continued to shake. She reached for the lock, turned it, and let the door fly open. She stepped back and pointed the TF Gun at the doors…

….as _another_ Sarah spilled out of the closet.

Bound.

Gagged.

Pale and shaking out of pure fear as she fell to the floor and stared up at the freakishly identical figure standing over her, pointing the TF Gun in her face.

"Well well…you're up early…" 'Sarah' said with a sneer. "The stun setting on this thing really isn't keeping you down long enough…"

"Mmmpphhmmm!!" the Sarah on the floor screamed, muffled into near-silence by the thick tape stuck over her face.

"Even if you weren't gagged, screaming wouldn't do you any good," the other Sarah mocked her. "No one's home. Mom and dad went off to that couple's retreat weekend…you remember that, don't you? I mean, you _must_…otherwise, how else would _I_ have known? Hmm? Well, go on…say something."

She set the TF Gun on the dresser, reached down to the bound Sarah and peeled the tape off nonchalantly.

The girl gasped for breath briefly before glaring at the figure above her. "You're never going to get away with this…my friends will figure you out…_Elliot_ will figure you out! He'll expose you for the clone you are!"

"No. They won't," the clone sneered. "Don't you get it, Sarah? I _am_ you, down to every last detail. Your memories, your education, how you act, your taste in clothes, your bra size…every single thing about you is a part of me, too. I know everything you know." Clone Sarah smirked. "Oh, and just in case you're thinking about Tedd's little web-cameras recording the evidence, forget it. I took care of that little inconvenience right off the bat."

"They'll still figure you out!" Sarah snapped. "I know they will! You won't ruin my life like this!!"

The clone threw her head back and laughed. "Oh, foolish little Sarah…you've had a week to sit in there and think about it, and you still haven't figured it out…"

"Figured _what_ out?!" Sarah demanded.

The clone knelt down and hovered right over Sarah's head. "Y'see, Sarah…Ellen had it all wrong, when she first came around. Sure, she _tried_ to ruin Elliot's life…but she was too soft about it. She didn't have what it takes to be an evil twin. She only thought of the petty things. Screw with his reputation a little, maybe get him into a bit of trouble at school….small beans, all of it." The clone sneered. "But me…I'm a little more ambitious."

She leaned down even closer. "See, you don't have to worry about me doing what Ellen tried to do. I have a very different path in mind."

"What path?" Sarah demanded.

"Isn't it obvious?" Clone Sarah said, suddenly glaring. "I have the same problem Ellen did. What can I do as a clone? Hang out with friends who won't know me? Live with a family that won't love me? No. I won't live a life like that. That much Ellen and I had in common."

She hoisted Sarah up and propped her against the wardrobe wall. "But I have an advantage Ellen never had…do you know what that is?"

"Ask me if I care, you psychotic bi--"

_**SMACK!**_

Before she could finish, her duplicate had slapped the tape back over her mouth, leaving a stinging pain across her cheek. She glared pure hatred at the other girl, struggling in vain to free herself.

Clone Sarah just smirked. "From the very moment Ellen was created, people knew who she was…where she'd come from…but you and me, Sarah? No one has any idea that that diamond did this to us. No one has any idea that there are two of us walking the earth…so what do you think would happen, Sarah…if one of us were to just…disappear?"

Sarah's face paled, her expression turning to sheer horror.

"Yes…you see it now, don't you, Sarah…?" the clone said, dropping her back in the wardrobe. "I'm not _ruining_ your life……I'm _taking_ it."

She picked up the TF Gun again.

"And not your friends…"

She raised the device and took aim.

"Not your parents…"

She dialed the gun's setting to 'stun.'

"Not even your dear, darling _Elliot_…"

She smiled a horrible smile at the terrified girl.

"…Will _ever_ know the difference…"

_**FLASH!**_

* * *

Comments and critiques welcomed and appreciated, as always.


	8. The Best Laid Plans

**Twin Envy**

_Chapter Eight: The Best-Laid Plans...  
_

* * *

_**Bzzztt. Bzzztt. Bzzztt.**_

Ellen scrunched her eyes tight and pulled the covers up over her head.

_**Bzzztt. Bzzztt. Bzzztt.**_

She groaned, and stuck one hand out from under the covers to fumble for the snooze button.

_**Bzzztt. Bzzztt. Bzzztt-click!**_

She hit the button and curled back under the covers, and the alarm clock, flashing Ten O'clock in the morning, fell silent. For about ten seconds.

_**Bzzztt. Bzzztt. Bzzztt.**_

Her eyes shot open with a snarl.

_**Bzzztt. Bzzztt. Bzzz-HHHHTT-zzzzz……**_

The alarm clock sparked and died as Ellen's fist drew back from slamming down on top of it, and the girl groaned in annoyance as she shook the pain out of her hand.

"Stupid cheap technology…damn snooze doesn't even work right…" she muttered, dragging herself up to a sitting position and rubbing at her eyes. If there was one thing she didn't inherit from Elliot, it was definitely her dislike for mornings. Mornings involved waking up, and waking up involved getting out of bed, and getting out of bed involved not sleeping anymore, which was an extremely undesirable chain of events. The alarm clock just added insult to injury.

She blinked the last of the sleep out of her eyes and squinted against the morning sunlight as she hauled herself out of bed, and happened to glance over at Elliot's bed across the room, which was neatly made and obviously empty. She was briefly curious about it, but wrote it off almost as quickly as she noticed it. Elliot had a habit of taking morning jogs; he'd probably left before she woke up.

She started heading downstairs, aiming to wake herself up with something high in sugar and/or caffeine, and was about halfway to the kitchen when the doorbell rang, followed almost immediately by a frenzied knocking.

Ellen grumbled for a moment, half-thought about ignoring it, but eventually turned around and walked back to the front door. She pulled it open without really looking at who it was, and was rewarded by being bowled over by Tedd as he barged inside.

"SorrynotimetosayhigottaseeElliot!" he babbled, scrambling straight past her and vaulting up the stairs toward her and Elliot's room.

"He's not here," she called lazily after him, fairly sure he wouldn't hear her. And sure enough, he came vaulting back down the stairs not five seconds later and ran toward the kitchen instead.

"Elliot!! Elliot, where the crap are you?!" he shouted, darting back and forth, until finally Ellen caught him by the arm and held him in place.

"Calm. Down," she said. "Elliot isn't here."

Tedd's eyes bulged. "What?!"

"Elliot isn't here. For the third time."

"Well where is he?!"

"How should I know? I just woke up, and he was already gone."

"Well…when did he come back from the concert last night?!"

"Oh, maybe around…" Ellen suddenly paused. "…hunh. Come to think of it, I don't know. Guess I fell asleep before he came home."

"Or maybe he never did…" Tedd muttered.

"What's THAT supposed to mean?" Ellen said with a suspicious glare.

"His date last night, I think--"

"Uh-uh, stop right there," Ellen cut him off. "No WAY would Elliot do anything like that with Sarah."

"No, Ellen, I--"

"Elliot is way too much of a stick in the mud to let anything happen with Sarah yet and you know it. He probably just went on an early jog or--"

"ELLEN!"

"…what?"

"I don't care about any of that!"

"Well what do you want Elliot for, then?"

"I think he might be in danger!"

"…I'm sorry, _what_?" Ellen demanded, her expression clearly disbelieving.

"I'm serious! I need to talk to him, now! It's important!"

"Alright, alright, jeeze…" she grumbled, reaching for the phone. "I'll call Sarah and ask if she's seen--"

"NO!" he shouted, slapping her hand away.

"Dah! What the hell?!" she demanded.

"You can't call Sarah!"

"Why the hell not?!"

"Because Sarah might be the problem!"

Ellen glared at him long and hard. "…Okay, Tedd, you're going to have to start making some sense. My alarm clock has already put me in a bad mood, and you are really not helping. Now what the hell are you talking about?"

"We don't have time for--"

"MAKE time," Ellen insisted, and sat down at the kitchen table, folding her arms defiantly.

"Nnghh…fine…" Tedd grumbled. He sat down and whipped a laptop out of his backpack, laid it on the table, and typed furiously for a moment.

"…Well?" Ellen pressed.

"Okay…you heard about the little…accident at my house last week?"

"You mean when you tried to mess with the Dewitchery Diamond and the TF Gun at the same time?"

"It was an experiment!"

"Whatever. What about it?"

"Well…when things went sour…I think…something bad happened to Sarah."

Ellen visibly tensed. "What kind of bad?"

"Here, I'll show you…"

Tedd spun the laptop screen around to face Ellen, who watched as a video feed of Tedd's lab began playing.

"My webcams recorded everything that happened that day. I was knocked out halfway through, though, so later I wanted to watch the recordings and see what exactly went wrong…but when Grace went to get the cameras, they were all smashed. Most of the memory cards were damaged beyond repair…except for this one."

Ellen watched curiously as the recording played, and as the TF Gun and the Dewitchery Diamond reacted with each other and each of her friends were knocked out, she finally saw what Tedd must have been talking about: Sarah appearing in the camera's vision, smashing one of Tedd's cameras to bits.

"…What is she doing…?"

"Exactly. For a minute I was pissed off when I saw this, but…Grace pointed something out, and she's exactly right. The Sarah we know wouldn't do something like this."

"What do you mean, 'the Sarah we know?' What happened to her?!"

"……I think, when the TF Gun and the diamond's powers mixed, their transformative properties combined into one energy…and I think Sarah got hit with it."

Ellen's eyes widened rapidly. "You mean…?"

"Yeah. I think we have TWO Sarahs."

"…No, no, that…no way…"

"Is it really that hard to believe? Sarah and Elliot have been acting different all week, we've all noticed it. This would explain it, wouldn't it?"

"No, Tedd, it doesn't! If that's a Clone Sarah running around, she'd be acting exactly the same! She'd be an exact clone! And besides, if it was a clone, then where's the REAL Sarah? Why haven't we seen her at all?"

Tedd's expression turned grim. "…That's why I think Elliot might be in danger."

"Huh?"

"Think about it, Ellen…" he said, looking at her carefully, cautiously. "When you…y'know…when you were first…born. What did you do?"

Ellen tensed somewhat as she tried to recall the unsettling memory. "…I…guess I still thought I was Elliot…"

"After that."

"…I thought I was gonna die?"

"After that!"

"…I…said I was--" she stopped and went wide-eyed suddenly, catching on.

"You said you were his evil twin," Tedd confirmed, and tapped his screen. "I think, when this happened…Sarah got one of her own…and it's done something to her. Something to keep her from showing up at the same time…"

Ellen was rapidly growing pale. "But…why would her clone do that…?"

"I'd bet my TF Guns it's the same reason that first drove you. She knew she was a clone. She thought no one would accept a copy like her. But there's more to it this time…"

"More…?"

"Unlike you, THIS clone isn't physically transformed. She still looks exactly like our Sarah. Which means she can do something you couldn't."

And then Ellen got it. "She can get rid of the original…and take Sarah's place…"

"And if we've figured it out, there's a good chance Elliot will too. Maybe already has. And there's no telling what Clone Sarah'll do if that happens."

"Wait, Tedd, just…wait for one second! This is all just guesswork! We don't _know_ what really happened! It could all be nothing! You can't just…_assume_ all this!"

"We have to. Hope for the best and expect the worst," he said, and stood back up, putting the computer away. "Now come on, help me find Elliot. I'll check the dojo, you look around the mall…"

"But what if he IS at Sarah's house?"

"We're not going there unless absolutely necessary, it's too risky," Tedd insisted, tapping on his watch. "Now hurry up and get dressed while I call Grace."

Ellen squinted at the device on his wrist. "Aren't those…"

"The watch communicators, yes," Tedd muttered distractedly. "Grace? Grace, can you hear me?"

_**Skkkkknnnntttt.**_

No answer.

Tedd frowned and tapped the watch. "Grace? Are you there?"

_**Skkkkknnnntttt.**_

Still nothing.

"Why do you need to call her?" Ellen asked.

"I told her to try and think of places Elliot might be besides my house and look for him in case he wasn't here. Looks like it was a good idea…if she'd pick up…"

Ellen, however, paled again. "Tedd, what _exactly_ did you tell her?"

"I just told you, look for Elliot in places he'd most likely be."

"Nothing else? You said exactly that and nothing more?"

"Yeah, why?" he muttered, still tapping the watch. "Stupid thing…maybe she can't hear me…Dah! Leggo!"

He glared at Ellen, who had grabbed him tightly by the arm, but she stared back at him completely white-faced. "Tedd, if you told her to look for him in places he would probably be if he's not at home, or at your house, WHERE DO YOU THINK SHE'S GOING TO LOOK FIRST?!"

Tedd was silent for about three seconds before the answer struck him, and as he looked back at the unresponsive communicator, he too went pale as a ghost. "Oh no…"

* * *

Elliot woke up feeling like a million bucks.

His eyes blinked slowly open in the late-morning sunlight and he stretched out lazily, yawning a bit. He felt so very warm and cozy lying there, he was fairly sure he didn't want to get up. Especially not when Sarah was lying there with him…

Or at least he thought she was.

When his eyes adjusted, however, he realized she was no longer lying there beside him. She was probably already up and about, he decided with another yawn, and sat up to grab his shirt and put it back on.

_What a night…_ he thought to himself. _If that wasn't the best date ever, I don't know what is…_

Everything really had been perfect. The concert was amazing, of course, but just being there with her made all the difference. He loved standing there with her cheering, talking with her as they walked home, kissing her goodnight before he would head home…or at least, that had been his plan. Sarah's, clearly, was something entirely different.

He had to admit, he'd been surprised once again by Sarah's recent forwardness. He never expected the night to continue, much less the way it had gone when it did. She'd never shown even the slightest desire to get more physical before perhaps a week ago. With the kind of advances she was making that night, though, he'd half-thought she was going to go as far as…

Well. He was glad she'd stopped well before _that_. Because to his sudden dismay, he realized he was not at all sure he could have said no. Something about her had become so alluring, so difficult to resist. Maybe he liked this more aggressive, physical Sarah…or at least, maybe the 'guy' in him did…that base instinct to reproduce. Because it was definitely that side of him that took her shirt off in the heat of the moment, and was ecstatic that she let him.

He tensed at that thought. What if she hadn't stopped there? What if she'd wanted more? Would he still be a virgin right now? Had he almost made a gigantic mistake?

Suddenly he didn't feel like a million bucks anymore.

"Elliot, you idiot…" he muttered to himself.

A rustling noise drew his attention outward a moment later. He turned his head and saw Sarah speed-walking across his vision, her expression tense and frustrated as her lips moved rapidly, as though thinking out loud. Maybe she was thinking along the same lines he was, he wondered.

"Sarah…?" he ventured.

She jerked, caught off guard, and looked wildly at Elliot before calming down. "Oh…you're up."

"Yeah…heh…hope you don't mind that I crashed here…"

"No, it's fine," she said distractedly, turning away and starting to hurry off again.

"H-hey, wait, hold on," he said, standing up and walking toward her. "Are you alright?"

She stopped again and turned halfway toward him to give him an obviously-strained smile. "I'm fine, stop worrying."

"You don't sound fine."

"It's nothing, really," she insisted.

"Sarah, come on, talk to me."

Sarah, however, looked like she just wanted to be somewhere else entirely, which only made Elliot think his suspicions might be correct. So he ventured a guess.

"Is this about…y'know…last night?"

"H-huh?" she blurted out, surprised. She probably hadn't expected him to pick up on it, he thought.

"Because maybe we…let things get a little out of hand?"

"…OH!" she exclaimed. "Oh…well…y-yeah, I guess maybe you're right…"

"I thought so…and I'm sorry about that, I should've controlled myself better."

"Really, Elliot, it's okay," she rapidly assured him. "I had an amazing time. It was a perfect night and I wouldn't trade a minute of it, okay?"

"So you're not mad about…?"

"Not even a little. Besides, it wasn't your fault…I was all caught up in the moment too, right?"

"Right…yeah…" he said with a nervous cough. "So we're…okay?"

"Better than okay," she assured him, swiftly kissing his lips. "Listen, we'll talk more later, but I really need to go take care of something. You stay right there, okay?"

"Ah…I dunno, my parents might be worried…maybe I should head home--"

At that point, however, she slid her arms around his neck and squeezed in close to him, and he somehow forgot what he was going to say next.

"I'll just be gone for a minute, okay…?" she cooed quietly. "Stay just a little longer, please? For me?"

"…Well…" he said slowly, "…I guess if I'm gonna get grounded for being out all night, another half hour won't make much difference, right?"

"Right. And then we can…talk more," she said. She patted the top of his butt. "And I can make fun of your cute little birthmark some more."

"I don't know why it fascinates you so much, but…sure, okay."

Sarah grinned and kissed him again. "Great. I'll be right back. And don't move!"

Elliot chuckled. "I'll be as stiff as a board."

Sarah squeezed his hand in thanks, then hurried out the front door.

"Well…that went well," he said to himself, relieved. He was half-afraid they would get into another fight, but thankfully Sarah wasn't mad at him and his wandering hands at all. She still wanted to talk to him, though…probably about the date, he guessed, and where she wanted to draw the line as far as physical stuff…a potentially awkward conversation if there ever was one, but after finding themselves half-naked last night, some clear ground rules might be best, in the long run…

_Th-thump._

Elliot's ears perked. He thought he'd heard something…footsteps, maybe. Except no one else was supposed to be in the house…

_Th-thump._

There it was again. Faint, but noticeable. And coming from Sarah's room.

Elliot tensed. Was someone in there? A burglar, perhaps? What kind of burglar was stupid enough to rob a house in broad daylight?

Cautiously he walked toward her room and peeked through the door, which stood ajar. He didn't see anyone…

_**Th-thump**_.

…but he could still hear the sound, whatever it was. It didn't sound like footsteps anymore…but it was definitely coming from her room.

He stepped inside, looking around curiously. Nothing seemed out of place or unusual…her bed was made, her dresser was neat, her wardrobe—

_**Th-thump**_.

Elliot stiffened. The wardrobe door was rattling. That was the noise. Was the wind making it…no, her window was closed, he realized. Did something fall over inside? No, because then why would it be constantly rattling?

_**Th-thump.**_

…Was something alive in there?

"Hello…?" Elliot said.

_**Th-thump thump!**_

The doors rattled again, harder this time. Something was in there, and it heard him. Elliot's gaze hardened, and his muscles tensed, ready for trouble. He slowly reached for the handle, turned the lock, and jerked back as the doors flew open and a pair of figures spilled out.

Elliot's eyes shot open in shock and disbelief. "What the…?!"

One figure, haphazardly tied up and gagged with duct tape, was Grace, in her human form, silent and motionless. She didn't look like she was breathing.

The other…Elliot was almost positive he was hallucinating. There was no way what he was seeing was real. It couldn't be…

"…Sarah…?"

Indeed, despite his head's denials, Sarah was lying there beside Grace, bound and gagged as well, except she was definitely active, struggling weakly to sit up. Elliot instinctively moved to help her, holding her head in his hands and raising her up to face him. He tore the tape slowly from her mouth, and she gasped for a free breath as soon as she could.

"Sarah, what…what's going--"

"She tricked you…" Sarah rasped. "She's a fake…she…no!"

Her eyes widened as she gazed past Elliot, and he spun around to face the barrel of a TF Gun aimed at his face, and a second Sarah behind the trigger.

"I told you not to move."

_**FLASH!**_

Everything went green for one brilliant moment…and then, it was all black.

* * *

Comments and critiques welcomed and appreciated, as always.


	9. A Twin Thing

**Twin Envy**

_Chapter Nine: A Twin Thing_

* * *

"Mmmpphh…"

Elliot gradually came back to consciousness, though how he'd lost it escaped him at the moment. All he was really aware of at first was that he felt unusually tired and groggy.

When he realized he was waking up in a sitting position, however, and that he couldn't move his arms or legs, it started to come back to him exactly what had happened.

He opened his eyes, glancing down at himself in shock. He was tied to a chair, arms behind his back, and gagged with a strip of tape. The room around him was dark, but the light shining through the one tiny window across the room gave him enough light to recognize where he was: Sarah's basement.

It was coming back to him now…Sarah had left him alone for a few minutes…he'd heard strange sounds from her room…and when he'd gone to look, he'd found…another Sarah…?

It wasn't possible. He _had_ to have dreamed it. He had to be dreaming _this_. There was no way he was actually sitting here tied to a chair in Sarah's basement. There was no way he'd seen another Sarah stuffed in a closet. There was no way he'd seen Grace stuffed in there with her looking, for all intents and purposes, lifeless.

And there was absolutely…positively _no way_ he'd seen the first Sarah return, and actually…shoot him. Even with the TF Gun, it seemed impossible that Sarah could do something like that to him.

But then he heard a rustling beside him, and when he turned toward it and squinted in the minimal light, he realized that it wasn't a dream. On his right, similarly tied to chairs and gagged, were Sarah and Grace. Sarah was stirring, eyes slowly blinking open. Grace, however, was still.

Elliot tensed. What the hell was going on?

"Mmphh!" he mumbled, trying to get Sarah's attention. She lifted her head up and turned to him at the sound, eyes wide and urgent. She looked terrified. She glanced at Grace, and from the expression she wore Elliot knew she feared the same thing he did, and prayed he was wrong about it.

Slowly he rolled his jaw back and forth, wetting his lips and gradually loosening the sticky adhesive over his mouth. It took several minutes of working, but at last he managed to force open space between his face and the tape. It still stuck to his lower jaw, but at least he could breathe properly. And talk.

"Sarah," he said, turning to her. "What is this? What's going on?"

Unfortunately her answer was too muffled for him to make out. He had to un-gag her somehow.

"Lean toward me and hold still," he told her. Sarah complied, leaning as far toward him as she could, and Elliot leaned in as well toward her cheek, until he could latch his teeth on the outer edge of the tape.

"On three, yank away as hard as you can," Elliot mumbled through gritted teeth. "One….two…three!"

Both yanked backward at once, ripping the tape clean off, which Elliot promptly spit out. Sarah, meanwhile, gasped for breath and finally looked back at him with fearful eyes.

"Elliot, it was _her_, the accident, she was just _there_ and she blasted me and then I kept waking up in the closet and then Grace was there, oh God, Grace--"

"Sarah!" Elliot said sharply. "Calm down! Breathe!"

Sarah panted for breath, no less afraid, but slowly calming. "The diamond, Elliot…in the lab accident, she--"

"--is sick and tired of having to shut you up."

The voice was exactly the same. Except it held none of her usual warmth and compassion. And it didn't come from her mouth. Elliot whipped his head around toward the source of her voice, and all illusions of the scene being a dream were gone. Sarah was beside him, tied to the chair…just as much as she was standing in front of both of them, fury etched on her face and one of Tedd's precious Transformation Guns leveled at both of them. Every inch of her looked exactly the same as the girl held beside him, from tip of her blonde head to the shirt on her back to the soles of her shoes.

A perfect imitation.

A clone.

"The diamond…" Elliot echoed Sarah's words, suddenly understanding. "At the lab accident last week…Sarah got hit with it…"

"Right in one," the clone answered.

"All this time…this whole last week…"

"Had you fooled, didn't I?" the clone snickered derisively. "Not that it was difficult…I AM Sarah, you know. Down to the last detail."

"You're not Sarah!" Elliot fired back.

"You sure seemed to think so this past week…" she sneered.

"What do you think you're doing, tying us up down here? And Grace?! What did you do to Grace?!"

"She's not dead, if that's what you're getting so bent out of shape about," the clone snapped. "She's just stunned. And you will be too in a minute…"

Thankful though he was that Grace was okay, Elliot wasn't any less angry. "I want to know what's going on. Now."

"I'm doing what YOUR little clone didn't have the guts to do."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"She wants to replace me," the real Sarah said. "She stunned me as soon as we realized the diamond split us. When I woke up I was stuffed in that closet, and she would come back and stun me again. She wanted to take over my life, and keep me out of the way."

Elliot rounded furiously on the clone. "It that true?!"

"It WAS," the clone growled, her own anger rising. "Until you and Grace started snooping around where you didn't belong."

"So you tied us up and threw us in the basement? Brilliant plan," Elliot said with a smirk. "I'm sure no one's ever going to notice us missing and come looking for us."

Like lighting the clone whipped the TF gun up at him and fired a burst of stun energy at him. Elliot jerked, expecting to pass out again, but instead his whole body went slack, like he was paralyzed.

"That was a low power stun. Don't make me shut you up completely," the clone snarled.

"Why are you doing this?!" Elliot demanded. "What did we ever do to you?!"

"I don't have much choice in the matter, do I?" Clone Sarah countered, turning her angry stare on the real Sarah. "This house is _hers_. This _family _is hers. This _life _is hers. That's all anyone's ever going to see. But it still feels like _mine_. And I want it back!"

"You couldn't just ask?!" Elliot burst out. "You really think there's no other place in the world for you?! That you couldn't live peacefully somewhere else?!"

"I don't WANT to live somewhere else!" the clone shot back. "THIS is my life, and SHE'S standing between us!"

She gripped the front of Elliot's shirt and yanked him forward. "You could've been perfectly happy…you could've lived a great life with me, and you'd _never_ have known anything had changed. But no, you just HAD to go sticking your nose where you didn't belong…you AND that little squirrel girl…and now _both_ of you need to _disappear_ along with your little girlfriend!"

"That's not gonna happen, you sorry excuse for a body-snatcher!"

"And who's going to stop me? No one else knows you're here. Once I close off you loose ends there won't be anyone left that knows what happened."

"You're pretty thick for being cloned from someone as smart as Sarah," Elliot sneered. "If Grace came snooping, you can BET Tedd's figuring out what's going on. Especially when she doesn't come back. And once Tedd knows, it's only a matter of time before _everyone_ knows. Face it, clone, your little plan is falling apart at the seams."

The clone was shaking with rage now. Good, Elliot thought to himself. It was working. The paralysis was already wearing off, and she was getting angry to the point of losing focus. Of not thinking clearly.

Of making a mistake.

"C'mon, what stings the most?" he provoked. "That you were found out? That your ruse to take over the rest of Sarah's life lasted a whopping seven days before it fell apart?"

"Shut up!"

"Or is it knowing that no one is going to ever believe you're really Sarah again? That as far as anyone else is concerned, you're just a clone?"

To his misfortune, he'd pushed too far, and his plan abruptly backfired. The clone whipped the TF Gun around suddenly, not shooting it but instead swinging it like a club, and not at him, but at--

_**CRACK!**_

"AHH!" Sarah screamed sharply, her head thrust to one side from the impact and her lip bleeding from the fresh wound.

"HEY! Leave her out of this!" Elliot shouted, going pale.

"Then shut your goddamn mouth!" the clone shouted back, raising the gun again and ready to strike her again.

"Okay, okay!" Elliot blurted out. "Just don't hurt her!"

The clone lowered her weapon and glared at him for a moment longer. Then, at last, she made the mistake he was looking for. Her cell phone rang. And for the sake of maintaining her cover, she turned away from him to answer it, and set the TF Gun down on a nearby table for a few critical seconds. That was all Elliot needed.

The moment she was turned away the changes had begun. Fur sprouted to life across his whole body. His torso bulged with muscle, making the ropes feel, if anything, tighter. His pupils ceased to be round and narrowed into slits. And most importantly, pointed claws grew from his fingertips, more than sharp enough to cut the rope that bound him.

"Nice to know this cat-form has _some_ uses…" Elliot observed. _**SLICE!**_ Away went his bindings.

"Wh--HEY! STOP IT!" the clone suddenly shouted, dropping her phone.

_**SLICE-SLICE!**_ Away went Sarah's and Grace's ropes.

"I SAID STOP IT!" Clone Sarah shrieked, diving for the gun. But Elliot was just slightly quicker. He slammed his claws down upon the TF Gun before the clone could so much as touch it; but the instant he did, a burst of green light radiated from it, and the stun energy within burst outward.

_**ZZHHTT!**_

"AHHH!" he cried out, at once human and feline as the energy surged through his body and dropped him to the floor by the stairs, panting.

"Serves you right, you little pest!" Clone Sarah growled, gripping the now-broken TF Gun. "You're going to pay for ruining my plan!"

The clone raised what was left of the gun over her head, ready to bash him over the head with it, but Elliot was left paralyzed on the ground by the stun energy, and the feeling in his limbs was coming back far too slowly…

"LEAVE HIM ALONE!"

Both Elliot and the clone whirled around just in time to catch sight of the _real_ Sarah rushing toward them before she crashed right into Clone Sarah. The broken TF Gun went flying as Sarah tackled her clone roughly to the ground, the both of them rolling over each other a few times in a sudden struggle for dominance. Elliot himself could only watch helplessly, not only unable to do so much as sit up yet, but because he could no longer tell which Sarah was which.

"Elliot!"

Elliot twisted toward the new voice, and smiled broadly. "Tedd…Ellen…"

Indeed, his best friend and his sister were leaping down the basement stairs, Tedd armed with the only remaining TF Gun and Ellen armed with her own glowing-green fists.

"Looks like we were right," Tedd said grimly, catching sight of the fight in the middle of the floor. "There _was _a Clone-Sarah all this time."

"Tedd caught enough of it on camera during that accident last week to figure it out," Ellen hastily explained. "Then when Grace didn't come back from here we had a feeling you guys might be in trouble."

"And speaking of which, where IS Grace…?" Tedd added worriedly.

"Over there…by the chairs," Elliot managed to point to the floor off to the side of Sarah and her clone battling.

Tedd turned to follow his finger, and promptly gasped. "Grace!"

He hurried over to her, dropping his TF Gun into Elliot's hand as he struggling to his feet.

"What happened to you?" Ellen asked.

"Broke the other TF Gun…stun energy knocked the wind outta me for a bit, but I'm fine. Nnhh…" he grunted. "Still wobbly though…"

"Here," Ellen said, grabbing the gun from him and firing the normalizer setting at him. In an instant the paralysis lifted completely, and Elliot was back in his own, human body.

"Thanks," Elliot said. "I'll take that…"

Without waiting for a response he snatched the TF Gun from Ellen's grip and, hard-faced, leveled the weapon at the pair of Sarahs.

"HEY!!"

Both Sarahs froze in place and looked up at Elliot, who stared defiantly back, searching both of them for some way of telling them apart. But there was nothing. The cut lip the clone had given the real Sarah was no longer unique; the clone had gotten one herself in the scuffle. They both wore the same clothes; shirts, pants, even their shoes were indistinguishable from each other.

They were perfectly identical. And all three of them knew it.

"Elliot, I'm the real Sarah, shoot her!" the one on the left shouted abruptly, jabbing an accusing finger at the other.

"No! I'm the real Sarah, she's lying!" the one on the right countered immediately.

"She's the liar! Elliot, you know me, you know I'm the real one!"

"No, Elliot, she's trying to trick you! Zap her!"

"Zap _her_, Elliot!"

"Elliot, please, it's me!

"No, Elliot, I'M Sarah!"

"No, I AM!"

"You are not!"

"Yes I am! You're just a clone!"

"YOU'RE the clone!"

"I AM NOT A--"

"BOTH OF YOU STOP IT, NOW!"

Both Sarahs fell instantly silent at Elliot's command, and the boy moved the gun back and forth between each of them, unable to tell them apart.

_C'mon Elliot, think…this can't be so hard…_ he told himself. _Just ask them something that only the real Sarah would know…wait, no, that won't work…the clone has all the same memories of the real Sarah, she knows everything Sarah knew…anything I could possibly ask to tell them apart, both of them would know easily…_

…_unless…oh no…of course…oh god…_

Elliot grimaced, but he had a plan. He didn't like it…as a matter of fact he was already hating himself for it…but it was all he had.

"Alright you two," he said as he eyed the identical girls, hard-faced. "Since I can't tell you apart myself, we'll have to do this another way. I'm going to ask you both a question. Something only the _real_ Sarah could possibly know. And once I get a right answer, I'll know who's who."

"Uhh…Elliot?" Ellen chimed in. "That won't--"

"I know what I'm doing, Ellen," he stopped her.

"But Elliot, the clone knows everything the real Sarah does!"

"Ellen, trust me!" he said back, his tone final. "No matter what…there is _no possible way_ that _anyone_ but the _real _Sarah could possibly know this…"

As he expected, both Sarahs looked at once nervous and jumpy, both ready to pounce on the right answer the instant they heard the question. But only one of them would know it. Of that, unfortunately, he was certain…

"Alright then…" he said, keeping his expression neutral. "Here it is…"

The room listened with baited breath.

"…I have a birthmark. Where is it and what does it look like?"

For a moment both girls froze as their minds raced to comprehend the question. Then the Sarah on his right seemed to pale sharply as though completely baffled, while the Sarah on the left burst out enthusiastically, "It's a crescent moon on your butt!"

Elliot smirked grimly, and leveled the gun at the one who answered. "Bingo."

_**ZZHHTT!**_

The blast of stun energy fired at low power straight into the girl whom Elliot now knew to be the clone, and she crumpled to the ground, shock on every face in the room but his own.

"B-but I…I got it right…!" the clone sputtered weakly.

"Exactly," Elliot said. "The real Sarah never saw that birthmark."

All too late, the clone realized her mistake with stunned eyes. "The date…after the concert…" She glared angrily at him. "You said only the real Sarah would know! You tricked me!"

Elliot only looked away from her. Unfortunately, his eyes fell on the real Sarah instead, her mind already jumping to the conclusions he feared she would.

"Sarah…I--"

He got no farther before she blew past him, charging up the stairs alone.

"Sarah, wait!" he called after her, but it did no good. She was already gone.

"Well well," Clone Sarah snickered. "I was going to milk that for all it was worth…but I guess my pathetic original self did all the work for me…"

In an instant Elliot had put her out completely with another stun blast. But it did nothing to ease the guilt he was suddenly wracked with.

"Sarah…"

* * *

Comments and critiques welcomed and appreciated, as always.


	10. Starting Over

**Twin Envy**

_Chapter Ten__: Starting Over_

* * *

It was a good hour before Mr. Verres arrived on the scene with some of his coworkers to try to make some sense of what had happened. By then the clone Sarah had woken up, and she wasn't making things easy for anyone, least of all Elliot. By the time Mr. Verres' people had taken her from the house, Elliot's mood was about as low as it had ever been in his life.

He sat limply on Sarah's front porch, head in his hands and staring at the ground. He felt like trash. For an entire week, the girl he loved had been replaced by an evil doppelganger, and he hadn't noticed a thing, hadn't even so much as _suspected_ it. In hindsight, he realized, he should have guessed something was wrong…her added forwardness, her more aggressive moves in their relationship, and most obviously that last date…

He shuddered at that thought. It was that more than anything else that made him feel like garbage. He'd let himself be seduced by a total fake…had come within a few heated moments of…

"Elliot?"

Elliot jerked out of his thoughts and looked up at the voice briefly, then hung his head again. "Jeez, Tedd, you scared me."

Tedd said nothing to that, sitting beside him and patting his shoulder. "So, ah…how you feeling, man?"

Elliot sighed. "I've been better."

"…Yeah, I guess that's understandable," Tedd said. "…but at least Sarah and Grace are okay, y'know?"

"Yeah…"

"Heh…and at least I know more about the stun setting now, too," Tedd started. "It was supposed to totally suspend all body function for the duration of the stun blast – heartbeat, brain-waves, need for nourishment, even aging – but I was never sure if that was the case. With Sarah being kept stunned for a solid week, though, it pretty much proves it works the way it's supposed to, right? 'Cause otherwise she probably would've died of thirst or starvation long before we ever--"

He stopped himself abruptly at a sharp glare from Elliot, and cleared his throat awkwardly. "Right. Sorry."

Elliot stared back at the ground. "So much for this being the best week of my life…"

Tedd gave him a hopeful smile. "C'mon, man, you're a hero. You exposed the clone, stopped her evil plan, and otherwise generally saved the day. Cheer up a little."

"Easier said than done."

"…Elliot, you have to know that none of this was your fault."

"I should've figured it out, Tedd. I should've known she was a fake. But I just…let myself get pulled into her whole charade, and the whole time, Sarah…" he trailed off and sighed again. "…I feel like I cheated on her, Tedd…"

"…Yeah, about that…" he said hesitantly. "The whole birthmark question thing…did she know that because--"

"No," Elliot said quickly. "We never got that far. But if this thing had gone on much longer…"

Tedd cleared his throat again. "Well, then…you didn't actually do anything, so, no big deal, right? And besides, there's no way you could've known, right? That clone WAS Sarah, basically. Every little thing was totally identical about them."

"Aside from the whole 'evil twin' syndrome, you mean?"

"Y'know, to be honest, that's the one thing I can't figure out," Tedd admitted. "Sarah's usually so…reserved. How could a clone of her be that angry and spiteful?"

_"That was her curse."_

Both boys looked up at the new voice. Tedd's father loomed over them, staring down at them with an expression somewhere between angry at their obvious meddling with the Dewitchery Diamond and relieved that no one had been hurt.

Tedd smiled weakly. "Ah…heh, hey, dad…"

"What do you mean her curse?" Elliot asked.

Mr. Verres sighed slightly. "After some preliminary observations, we realized her curse wasn't the result of the stun ray, as we might have first thought. It's more likely that the diamond's energy affected Sarah first and split her in two, and the Transformation Gun's stun energy hit both her and her clone immediately afterward. And judging from her clone's behavior, it seems probable that Sarah was in an unnaturally angry mindset when she was hit. So her 'cursed' clone inherited that." Mr. Verres eyed them for another moment before gazing back at the government-marked van that was just now driving off, in which the clone was held. "Poor thing…all that anger, misdirected…"

Elliot hung his head again in guilt. "So it _was_ my fault…she was mad at _me_ when that accident happened…"

"Elliot, she was mad at the _world_ for taking her grandfather away from her. It wasn't your fault," Tedd tried to assure him. "We went over this, remember?"

"….I guess," Elliot admitted. "…But I still didn't even realize she was a clone this whole time, I could have--"

"Elliot, I'm not exactly your father, but have some fatherly advice anyway," Mr. Verres stopped him. "Whether or not you could or couldn't have known that there was a clone doesn't really matter now. What _does_ matter is that there is a sad, scared, and confused girl upstairs right now needing comfort. Is it really the best idea for you to be sitting there feeling sorry for yourself?"

Elliot thought about that for approximately five seconds. Then, without another word, he stood up, turned, and went inside the house.

"Heh…nice one, dad," Tedd said with a grin.

Mr. Verres only stared down at him sternly.

Tedd sighed. "I'm in trouble again, aren't I…?"

* * *

_Knock, knock._

Sarah barely lifted her head at the sound, instead curling tighter around her pillow and staring into empty space. She'd been that way for a full hour, ever since Elliot had stopped that awful clone…but rather than feeling grateful, she just felt numb inside.

She'd been skeptical about the whole question thing; as Ellen had so carefully pointed out, anything she knew, the clone should know too. But then Elliot brought out that whopper of a question, about a birthmark on his butt? And somehow, the clone knew about it?

It didn't take a genius to figure out how she could have known something like _that._

_Knock, knock._ "Sarah…?"

Elliot's voice. Her body tensed; did she really want to even look at him right now, much less talk to him?

Still, she didn't say anything, and Elliot seemed to take her silence as something resembling an invitation. She heard her door open and close quietly, heard his soft breath now present in the room, heard his slow footsteps as he approached her bed and stood at the foot of it.

"…Tedd's dad and his people came. They're gonna take the…y'know…the clone…they're taking her to his paranormal investigation unit…they'll take care of her…hopefully try to find a place in the world for her…"

Sarah only nodded noncommittally, half wishing he would leave her alone for the rest of her life and half wishing he would grab her and hold her and kiss her and never let go.

"Sarah…"

Still she kept silent, not looking at him, not hardly even moving, almost hoping he'd think she was asleep and go away so she wouldn't have to deal with this right now, even though they both knew she was wide awake.

"Sarah, I…" he started again. "…I'm sorry."

…Well, that was a start, Sarah thought to herself.

"I want you to know," he went on, "that whole question thing about the birthmark…it's not what you think. I swear to you on my life, on my family, on…on everything that's even remotely important to me, we did not have sex. She only saw that out of a…bit of fooling around, which I feel awful about. I'm so sorry, Sarah, I had no idea, or I swear, it never would have happened. The only reason it happened in the first place was…it was because I…thought it was you. And I know that's no excuse at all, and I still feel like I've totally betrayed you, but I…I just wanted you to know the truth."

Sarah's eyes were squeezed shut against the tears by the time he fell silent. Of course, she berated herself, of course he was sorry. Of course he wouldn't cheat on her. She could scarcely believe she'd thought any less of him. Hell, he didn't even have anything to be sorry for, when it came down to it. He thought it was her, Sarah, whom he was loving and caring for. He wasn't trying to go behind her back and sleep with someone else…

"…Sarah, please, say something…"

Sarah slowly rolled over and sat up to face him, unable to hold off her tears any longer as she smiled at him. "Don't be sorry, Elliot…you don't have anything to be sorry for. The whole thing's my fault anyway…"

"It was not your fault," he said instantly.

"Yes it was, Elliot," she insisted. "I got mad at you over that stupid…stupid fight, I threw that book, I…I caused the whole accident that created…her…in the first place."

Elliot didn't respond to that.

"I took out all my stupid frustrations on you," Sarah continued, everything gushing out now. "The whole fight wouldn't have happened if I hadn't been so hung up on my own problems. I was a total jerk to you and you didn't deserve it, and...and it's my fault that clone was created, and my fault that she did…the things she did."

She looked down again, averting her eyes and rolling away again. "So if anyone should be sorry, it's me…"

Elliot was beside her on the bed in an instant, pulling her into a tight hug from behind, to her surprise.

"You couldn't have known any of this was gonna happen, any more than I could have known that that clone took your place," he said quietly. "You don't have to be sorry for that."

"Then don't be sorry for thinking the clone was me."

"But I _am_ sorry for that."

"And _I'm_ sorry about causing the whole fight."

"But you don't have to be."

"Neither do you."

"Well I still am."

Sarah smiled simply and turned to face him again. "Well then, let's say we're both sorry and we both forgive each other, because I haven't kissed you in more than a week, and I really miss it, and a 'kiss and make up' sounds really nice right about now."

Elliot smiled right back. "I couldn't agree more."

And before they knew it, the entire fight, from the day it had started to the accident in the lab to that very moment, was nothing more than a bad memory. They didn't say a word; not to apologize, not to reassure, not even to say their 'I Love You's.' None of it was necessary. Their lips were together, and that was all that mattered in the world.

* * *

_Epilogue: One week later…_

* * *

All around them people screamed. Speakers and amps blared so intensely they must have been cranked up to eleven. The noise was deafening.

But it was a really, really good kind of deafening.

"You really didn't have to do this!" Sarah shouted over the din.

"Yeah, well, I did anyway!" he shouted back with a smile. "You're worth it!"

"I'm worth flying a hundred miles outside Moperville to catch the Random Dudes at their next tour spot?!" she asked.

At first Elliot only held his soft smile on hers. And as the Random Dudes' current song ended and the next one struck up into what Elliot knew was her favorite love ballad, they closed in and embraced, revolving on the spot in a tender slow dance to the quieter, soothing tune.

"You're worth all that and more," Elliot assured her, whispering into her ear. "I love you, Sarah."

"I love you too," Sarah whispered back, glowing and smiling. "You _and_ your little birthmark."

"I _knew_ it was a mistake to show you that," Elliot chuckled. "No matter how much you begged."

"Call me curious," Sarah laughed right back. "Besides, it's cute."

"It's also on my butt."

"That's why it's cute," she giggled, and Elliot couldn't help himself from laughing too as he pulled her closer and kissed her cheek until she turned her head and made him kiss her lips instead.

And the band played on…

And they danced.

* * *

**THE END**

* * *

Author's notes: This fic was actually completed some time ago, but it'd taken me quite a while to get my lazy ass up and post it to FFN. Sorry to anyone reading this who might care, heh.

This is not the original incarnation of this fic, at least as far as the original script was concerned. A critical change was made for the initial release, in the name of keeping the character in question as in-character as possible. I was never completely sure if I made the right choice, however, or even if I could have pulled off my original plan. So I chose to at least make an attempt at it.

The next four chapters, which re-tell chapters 7-10, are what you might call a "Director's Cut," or an 'alternate ending,' for this fic. They are largely similar, but there are very significant differences in the content, namely that it is more mature, dramatic, and lengthy. Thus, read at your own risk, and should you choose to do so, I hope you enjoy the alternate ending.

Comments and critiques welcomed and appreciated, as always.


	11. Sarah's Secret: Alternate Ending

**Twin Envy: Alternate Ending  
**

_Chapter Seven: Sarah's Secret_

* * *

"Okay, Elliot. You can do this. It's just a date like any other. We'll go out, we'll have fun at the concert, we'll have a nice romantic walk back in the moonlight, we'll kiss goodnight and go home. Simple."

Sure. Simple. Now it totally made sense that he was standing in her living room, shaking as though he were planning on proposing or something.

He shook his head sharply. Oh yeah. _That_ was an image that did wonders to calm his nerves.

He glanced warily at his watch. What was taking her so long? It was already nine-thirty. He heard girls liked to make guys wait for them before dates, but they kind of had a deadline to follow. The concert started in half an hour, and it wasn't going to wait for them.

Curiously he wandered over to her room, intending to politely ask if she was ready yet and hope she'd get the hint. As he approached, though, he heard her mumbling inside, rustling something around.

"Get…back…in there…" he managed to interpret. Curious, he raised a fist and knocked lightly. She didn't respond, but the impact did nudge the door open a crack; apparently she'd left it slightly ajar. It occurred to him a second too late that he probably shouldn't peek in, in case she was still dressing, but he'd already looked by the time that thought registered.

Fortunately she was decent, as best he could tell through the tiny crack. She was trying to close the door of her standing wardrobe, but it was apparently so full she was having difficulty doing so. It took her another few seconds of grunting and struggling to finally get the door closed and turn the lock with a breath of relief. Figuring that was why she hadn't heard him knock, he tried again, and this time she responded.

"Sorry, sorry! I'm ready!" she breathed as she flung the door open. For a long moment, Elliot could only gape at her as she stood there in the doorway dressed in a pure white, low-cut blouse, dainty heels that almost eliminated their height difference, and a denim skirt that was short enough to give Elliot a really, _really_ good view of her legs. Her hair was tied back in a short ponytail save for two bunches toward the front, which she'd tucked behind her ears so as not to hide her face, which by itself gave Elliot goose-bumps thanks to the gorgeous smile she wore.

He managed to get over this initial shock when he heard her giggle at him, and he grinned like a fool. "You look incredible."

Sarah laughed again. "You don't look too bad yourself."

Elliot shrugged modestly. "What, this old getup?" he gestured to his casually-formal khaki pants and black button-up shirt. S'nothing special."

"I think it looks perfect."

Elliot couldn't help but keep grinning. He gestured behind her. "Having trouble with your wardrobe there?"

"Oh, no, nothing big," Sarah quickly assured him. "Just a little overfull."

"Funny, that used to be pretty empty. What made you start using it?"

Sarah shrugged. "It came from my grandparents, so I figured…y'know, now that grandpa's gone…I should make use of it…it's as good a way as any to keep his memory alive, right?"

Elliot nodded. "Still, that door looks like it could use some work. Maybe Tedd and I could--"

"No, no, really, it's fine!" she interrupted him. "I'd rather not have anyone mess with it. Don't worry, I'll manage."

Elliot nodded again and smiled. "Alright, fair enough. So you're ready to go, then?"

Sarah nodded quickly. "Definitely, let's go!"

Elliot took her hand in his with another jolt of goose-bumps, and together they headed out on foot, as the concert was being held in the park, a mere fifteen minute walk from Sarah's house. All the way Sarah held tight to Elliot, moving from simply holding his hand to wrapping her arms around one of his and half-leaning on him as they neared the park, and Elliot couldn't help but mentally pat himself on the back for putting together such a perfect evening. Already she looked so utterly happy, he knew the money he'd invested was totally worth it. And the concert hadn't even started yet.

_Whoop…scratch that…_ Elliot corrected himself as he heard the band play a few opening licks. His hold on Sarah tightened. "C'mon, they're starting!"

Sarah broke out into a frenzied grin and ran with him inside, backstage passes in hand…

* * *

_**ZZZZHHHKKKKTTT!!**_

"GAH!" Tedd jerked back from his desk, shaking out his suddenly numb hand. "Dammit!"

A second later he heard Grace bolt into the room. "Tedd! Are you okay?! What was that noise?!"

"I'm fine, I'm fine, just a little electric shock…" Tedd muttered, and let out an annoyed growl, glaring at his work bench. A digital camera memory card sat there, connected to a small data reader, both of which were suddenly blackened and smoking.

Grace clutched the affected hand and quickly began massaging it with both of her own. "Tedd, you gotta be more careful, you could've really gotten hurt…"

"I _have_ to figure this out, Grace…" Tedd insisted. "I have to know what happened down there." He grumbled again. "Damn…I really thought I had that one…stupid crossed wires…lucky it didn't fry the computer too…"

"You're lucky it didn't fry _you_," Grace admonished.

"I promise, Grace, I'm fine," he assured her with a squeeze of his hand that was slowly regaining feeling. "Just annoyed…the first card was damaged a little too much to salvage, and then this one fried itself before I could get at its data records…"

He removed the third and final memory card from its place in a small protective box, and held it up in front of him. "…I just have one left to work with. If I screw up with this one…I'll never find out who broke the cameras in the first place."

Grace squeezed his hand back. "You'll get it, Tedd. I know you can do it."

"I really hope so…" he murmured, and picked up his tools. "Grab the backup card reader…time to start from scratch…"

* * *

It was long after midnight before the final chords played, Sarah got to shake the hands of the Random Dudes, and Elliot had insisted on getting her a souvenir jacket before they left because she couldn't stop shivering. But they didn't care. It had been an incredible show.

"That has got to be the best concert I've been to in my _entire life_," Sarah gushed as they passed through the park gates and started their walk home.

"I can see why you like those guys," Elliot agreed. "I gotta admit I didn't know too many songs by them, but they were really good. That was some impressive guitar work."

Sarah grinned at that. "God, that last guitar solo…hearing it on their CD is one thing, but hearing it _live_ just blows the CD out of the water!"

Elliot nodded along. "I'm gonna be tone deaf tomorrow, but you're right, it's totally worth it."

"And meeting them up close…I had no idea they were such _hunks_!"

"You're not gonna run off and be a groupie, are you?" Elliot joked.

Sarah socked him in the arm with a giggle. "You're mean!"

"I'm sorry!" Elliot laughed back. "You never tell me _I'm_ a hunk, but you'll say that to them? Pardon me for getting concerned."

"I don't _need_ to tell you you're a hunk, you already know you are," Sarah threw back.

"Oooh, nice save," Elliot smirked, and pulled her tight into his arms from behind. "I guess I can forgive you admiring other guys just this once."

"Psh…like you wouldn't do the same thing if they were a bunch of hot chicks," she said as she leaned back into his arms.

He swiftly leaned in and kissed her cheek. "They'd have nothing on you."

"Oh, you're just saying that."

It's true," Elliot assured her, and grinned again. "Besides, I don't think I'd like my eye-candy girls to be quite that hairy."

Sarah snorted with laughter. "Elliot, practically all rock bands are that hairy!"

"I rest my case."

They both laughed again, and Elliot let go of her so they could continue walking. They did so in silence for a handful of moments, glancing at each other every few paces and smiling.

"Elliot?" Sarah spoke up at last, quieter than before.

"Yeah?"

"…How much did you spend on those tickets?"

Elliot winced slightly, almost invisibly, and to his relief Sarah didn't seem to notice. "It was nothing, Sarah, I was happy to--"

"How much did you spend?"

Elliot stiffened a little. He didn't want to say…but he couldn't lie either. Aside from the fact that he was awful at lying and she'd see right through it anyway, it didn't sound like a brilliant idea to lie to his girlfriend. So for a long moment he was silent. And that much, Sarah saw through.

"…It's a lot, isn't it?"

"You're worth every penny, Sarah," he responded instantly. "If it makes you happy, it's always worth it, and those guys are your absolute favorite band, and I knew you've wanted to see them for the longest time. So I figured I might as well go all out with it. Besides, it's not like I was gonna spend it on anything else anyway…I just saved up for a while, is all. Don't worry about it, okay?"

"Elliot, you don't need to--"

"I know. But I wanted to." He took her hands in his, and stepped in front of her. "I love you. And I will do anything to see you happy."

Sarah's cheeks colored a little despite the cold. "…I love you too."

"I know," he said.

"Just…stop totally killing your wallet for me, okay?"

Elliot smiled a little. "I'll try to stop showering you with gifts."

She smiled back, and they walked onward again. All too soon, they'd reached Sarah's house, and they stood together on the doorstep, hand in hand, neither of them wanting to stop gazing at the other.

"Well…guess this is goodnight…" Elliot said quietly.

"…It was wonderful, Elliot…" she almost whispered. "…probably the best date I've ever had. Thank you…"

"You're welcome…"

He leaned in to kiss her goodnight just as she did the same, and they met halfway, holding each other gently and kissing with a soft and tender touch.

At least, at first.

When the kiss didn't end there, it grew stronger, more heated. Their hold on each others' bodies closed in, and they pressed themselves tightly together as they stumbled back slightly to lean against the doorframe. Elliot felt goose-bumps shoot across his skin as Sarah's hands slid under his shirt to trace soft circles on his back, and when he responded with a gentle stroke along her hips, she had to break their kiss just to catch her breath.

"Wow…" Elliot whispered.

"Yeah…wow…" Sarah added.

Elliot started to tell himself he should probably say goodnight now, but his body just didn't want to cooperate. His hands still rested on Sarah's hips, holding her body very close to his. _Her_ hands were slowly removing themselves from his shirt and sliding over his shoulders up to his cheeks. Their faces hovered bare inches apart.

"Sarah…I…"

"Shut up, Elliot…"

She closed the distance in a second, and their lips were joined again. She was kissing him with that fiery passion again, that incredible driving force that left him completely uncaring about who might see or what classes they were late for. It was downright electric, and even his rational brain couldn't say no to the feeling. Maybe it was this kiss…maybe it was the date…maybe it was them still getting over that stupid fight…maybe some combination of all three…but he had never been more attracted to her than he was at that moment.

Before he could stop her, her lips slid off his and trailed slowly across his cheek. A second later they brushed against his ear, and in the barest of whispers, Sarah said four little words that sent him into near-total brain failure.

"_My parents aren't home…_"

And he offered no resistance, no resistance at all as she pushed the front door open, pulled him wide-eyed across the threshold, and shut it behind them.

* * *

"Come on…c'mon c'mon c'mon…"

"Careful, careful…"

"I know, I know…just a little…more…there."

Tedd set his tools down and lifted the memory card up to the light, as though inspecting it. "What do you think…?"

"Looks okay to me," Grace said from over his shoulder.

"It better be…I've done all I can," Tedd admitted. He lowered the card and slid it swiftly into his backup card reader. "Here goes nothing…"

He started the card reader and looked at his computer, hoping it would bring up the video file he knew was stored there. He waited…waited…

_**Blip!**_

The media player popped up and began loading the file.

"YES!" Tedd exclaimed.

"You did it!" Grace squealed, squeezing his shoulder.

"It's not six angles at once, but it's something!" Tedd said, and stared intently at the screen. "Alright, you gorgeous piece of technology, show me what you got!"

And show him it did. The camera image filled the screen a second later, showing the pair an angle of the basement directly facing the computer. It was currently at the beginning of the recording, and all he could see was himself at the computer, talking to Elliot, whose feet were just barely visible at the far right edge of the image. At least, he assumed they were talking, from the movements of his mouth. The audio, apparently, had not survived the damage.

"This is too far back…" he murmured, and sped up the recording, until he left the frame briefly and returned carrying a cage full of rats and looking a bit awkward. He let go of the fast-forward button at that moment and let the recording play normally as he placed one rat from the cage inside the clear case containing one of his TF Guns and the dewitchery diamond.

"Is this it?" Grace asked.

"Yeah, this is it…you can't see it here, but Sarah and Elliot are arguing by the stairs…any second now Sarah'll--"

Right on cue, a large and heavy book was suddenly flung into view, smacking him in the back of the head. Tedd himself winced and instinctively rubbed the offended spot as he watched himself pitch forward onscreen and strike the TF Gun's activation button hard enough to break it. The TF Gun began firing its experimental new stun beam into the dewitchery diamond, and before long both were glowing and pulsing with bright green transformation energy.

"Whoa…"

A second later Elliot appeared in the camera's view, reaching into the case for the TF Gun. The instant he touched it, a shock bolted through his body, the effects of the stun setting taking hold instantly. He tumbled to the floor, dragging the whole case to the floor with him, and as the TF Gun shut itself down, Tedd gazed at the violently strong energy pulsing from the diamond. Sarah appeared next, rushing toward Elliot's fallen form, but she froze upon seeing the diamond and backpedaled a few steps to the corner of the camera's vision. A second later the diamond's energy exploded outward, a series of beams shooting out from it in completely random directions. A handful came within inches of hitting his and Elliot's limp bodies, but one struck Sarah dead-on, throwing her backward out of the camera's view before the energy burned out.

"That had to hurt…" Grace murmured sympathetically. "…Weird…I could've sworn she said the TF Gun knocked her out…"

A handful of minutes passed in silence, nothing moving in the screen at all. Tedd tracked forward quickly, rolling the empty minutes along and watching intently for the slightest change…

"Wait, go back, I saw something!" Grace blurted out. Tedd complied without an argument and rewound the recording a bit, letting it play again at normal speed. Grace leaned forward over his shoulder, narrowing her eyes at the screen. "…There!" she pointed.

"What is it?" Tedd demanded, backing up a few frames and playing the video again in slow motion.

"Watch your computer…it's got the webcam window open…right there! See it?!"

Tedd did indeed see it this time, though he had to strain to do so. His basement computer showed all six of his webcams' lines of vision, and though the images themselves were far too small and grainy to see what they each displayed, he saw one of the six squares suddenly turn into nothing but grey fuzz.

"Someone just broke one of the cameras…" Grace realized. Her eyes widened a bit more as the tape continued. "There goes another one!"

"Whoever broke the cameras is in there, right here…" Tedd agreed. "Which means when they reach the camera that this card was pulled from…or if they pass through this one's line of vision while breaking another one…we'll have our vandal…"

And right on cue, a figure appeared from the right side of the camera. A girl of average height, and unmistakable short, blonde hair. Carrying his precious TF Gun. Snatching the camera off the top of his computer, dropping it to the floor, and slamming her foot down upon it.

Grace's eyes widened in disbelief. "Sarah…?"

"What the hell is she doing?!" Tedd burst out, his expression rapidly degenerating into one of fury. "That's over a thousand dollars worth of equipment! AND she's stealing the TF Gun!"

"She wouldn't…Sarah wouldn't do that…"

"Grace, look at her, she IS doing it!"

"Tedd, I've been friends with Sarah for only a few weeks, and even _I_ know she wouldn't do this! You've known Sarah for years! You _know_ our Sarah wouldn't do something like this!"

"Grace, the video doesn't lie! That's Sarah on that screen there, destroying and stealing my stuff for no good reason! There is absolutely _no way_ that's _not _Sarah!"

But abruptly he froze, his rage vanishing and quickly being replaced with a shocked awe.

"…Unless…"

* * *

She blinked her eyes open, yawned, and stretched out her limbs, but pulled them back under the quilt before too long; it was a bit chilly still. Though it _was_ four in the morning.

Sarah smiled broadly, content with herself. Thing were going absolutely perfect. She'd made up from the fight, brought their relationship to a higher level, and gotten him to fall even more hopelessly in love with her than ever. And it had only taken her a week.

Yes…change was good, she thought.

She sat up from her spot on the living room couch, holding the thick quilt to her chest, and looked back at where she had been lying. Nestled nice and cozy beside her spot was the shirtless figure of Elliot, snoring lightly as he lay on his side. She smiled coyly as she admired his upper body, and her eyes wandered a little farther downward, to his boxers that she didn't quite remember him putting back on. He probably didn't like to sleep naked, she guessed. Oh well, she'd seen it all, now…and what a sight to see it had been. He really was an immensely attractive person. And he certainly seemed to think the same about her. The way he reacted as her clothes kept coming off…oh, the looks on his face had been priceless…and so was his expression when she spied the small, crescent-moon-shaped birthmark way down his back, almost on his butt. It was this that she was looking at again now. She'd never seen it before. It was almost…cute. She'd have to remember to tease him about it later.

She swung her legs out from under the quilt and grabbed her clothes off the floor, fitting them back on before she let go of the quilt and laid it over Elliot's body. He'd be fine there for the night. No one was coming home for a while yet, and she had something to check on of a rather…private nature.

She left Elliot where he was and crossed the living room to the hallway. She turned into the door farthest down the hall. Her room.

_Thump. Th-thump._

The wardrobe doors were rattling.

"Persistent little pest, aren't you…" Sarah muttered, her expression darkening. She strode over to her dresser, dug under a pile of old jeans, and drew out a familiar device: one of Tedd's prized TF Guns. She carried it with her to the wardrobe, which continued to shake. She reached for the lock, turned it, and let the door fly open. She stepped back and pointed the TF Gun at the doors…

….as _another_ Sarah spilled out of the closet.

Bound.

Gagged.

Pale and shaking out of pure fear as she fell to the floor and stared up at the freakishly identical figure standing over her, pointing the TF Gun in her face.

"Well well…you're up early…" 'Sarah' said with a sneer. "The stun setting on this thing really isn't keeping you down long enough…"

"Mmmpphhmmm!!" the Sarah on the floor screamed, muffled into near-silence by the thick tape stuck over her face.

"Even if you weren't gagged, screaming wouldn't do you any good," the other Sarah mocked her. "No one's home. Mom and dad went off to that couple's retreat weekend…you remember that, don't you? I mean, you _must_…otherwise, how else would _I_ have known? Hmm? Well, go on…say something."

She set the TF Gun on the dresser, reached down to the bound Sarah and peeled the tape off nonchalantly.

The girl gasped for breath briefly before glaring at the figure above her. "You're never going to get away with this…my friends will figure you out…_Elliot_ will figure you out! He'll expose you for the clone you are!"

"No. They won't," the clone sneered. "Don't you get it, Sarah? I _am_ you, down to every last detail. Your memories, your education, how you act, your taste in clothes, your bra size…every single thing about you is a part of me, too. I know everything you know." Clone Sarah smirked. "Oh, and just in case you're thinking about Tedd's little web-cameras recording the evidence, forget it. I took care of that little inconvenience right off the bat."

"They'll still figure you out!" Sarah snapped. "I know they will! You won't ruin my life like this!!"

The clone threw her head back and laughed. "Oh, foolish little Sarah…you've had a week to sit in there and think about it, and you still haven't figured it out…"

"Figured _what_ out?!" Sarah demanded.

The clone knelt down and hovered right over Sarah's head. "Y'see, Sarah…Ellen had it all wrong, when she first came around. Sure, she _tried_ to ruin Elliot's life…but she was too soft about it. She didn't have what it takes to be an evil twin. She only thought of the petty things. Screw with his reputation a little, maybe get him into a bit of trouble at school….small beans, all of it." The clone sneered. "But me…I'm a little more ambitious."

She leaned down even closer. "See, you don't have to worry about me doing what Ellen tried to do. I have a very different path in mind."

"What path?" Sarah demanded.

"Isn't it obvious?" Clone Sarah said, suddenly glaring. "I have the same problem Ellen did. What can I do as a clone? Hang out with friends who won't know me? Live with a family that won't love me? No. I won't live a life like that. That much Ellen and I had in common."

She hoisted Sarah up and propped her against the wardrobe wall. "But I have an advantage Ellen never had…do you know what that is?"

"Ask me if I care, you psychotic bi--"

_**SMACK!**_

Before she could finish, her duplicate had slapped the tape back over her mouth, leaving a stinging pain across her cheek. She glared pure hatred at the other girl, struggling in vain to free herself.

Clone Sarah just smirked. "From the very moment Ellen was created, people knew who she was…where she'd come from…but you and me, Sarah? No one has any idea that that diamond did this to us. No one has any idea that there are two of us walking the earth…so what do you think would happen, Sarah…if one of us were to just…disappear?"

Sarah's face paled, her expression turning to sheer horror.

"Yes…you see it now, don't you, Sarah…?" the clone said, dropping her back in the wardrobe. "I'm not _ruining_ your life……I'm _taking_ it."

She picked up the TF Gun again.

"And not your friends…"

She raised the device and took aim.

"Not your parents…"

She dialed the gun's setting to 'stun.'

"Not even your dear, darling _Elliot_…"

She smiled a horrible smile at the terrified girl.

"…Will _ever_ know the difference…"

_**FLASH!**_

* * *

Author's Notes: The changes to this chapter compared to its original release are relatively mild, admittedly, but since it is the point where the critical change itself occurs, it's necessary to reprint this chapter. Rest assured, though, subsequent chapters will have much more new and different content.

Comments and critiques welcomed and appreciated, as always.


	12. The Best Laid Plans: Alternate Ending

**Twin Envy: Alternate Ending  
**

_Chapter Eight: The Best-Laid Plans..._

* * *

_**Bzzztt. Bzzztt. Bzzztt.**_

Ellen scrunched her eyes tight and pulled the covers up over her head.

_**Bzzztt. Bzzztt. Bzzztt.**_

She groaned, and stuck one hand out from under the covers to fumble for the snooze button.

_**Bzzztt. Bzzztt. Bzzztt-click!**_

She hit the button and curled back under the covers, and the alarm clock, flashing Ten O'clock in the morning, fell silent. For about ten seconds.

_**Bzzztt. Bzzztt. Bzzztt.**_

Her eyes shot open with a snarl.

_**Bzzztt. Bzzztt. Bzzz-HHHHTT-zzzzz……**_

The alarm clock sparked and died as Ellen's fist drew back from slamming down on top of it, and the girl groaned in annoyance as she shook the pain out of her hand.

"Stupid cheap technology…damn snooze doesn't even work right…" she muttered, dragging herself up to a sitting position and rubbing at her eyes. If there was one thing she didn't inherit from Elliot, it was definitely her dislike for mornings. Mornings involved waking up, and waking up involved getting out of bed, and getting out of bed involved not sleeping anymore, which was an extremely undesirable chain of events. The alarm clock just added insult to injury.

She blinked the last of the sleep out of her eyes and squinted against the morning sunlight as she hauled herself out of bed, and happened to glance over at Elliot's bed across the room, which was neatly made and obviously empty. She was briefly curious about it, but wrote it off almost as quickly as she noticed it. Elliot had a habit of taking morning jogs; he'd probably left before she woke up.

She started heading downstairs, aiming to wake herself up with something high in sugar and/or caffeine, and was about halfway to the kitchen when the doorbell rang, followed almost immediately by a frenzied knocking.

Ellen grumbled for a moment, half-thought about ignoring it, but eventually turned around and walked back to the front door. She pulled it open without really looking at who it was, and was rewarded by being bowled over by Tedd as he barged inside.

"SorrynotimetosayhigottaseeElliot!" he babbled, scrambling straight past her and vaulting up the stairs toward her and Elliot's room.

"He's not here," she called lazily after him, fairly sure he wouldn't hear her. And sure enough, he came vaulting back down the stairs not five seconds later and ran toward the kitchen instead.

"Elliot!! Elliot, where the crap are you?!" he shouted, darting back and forth, until finally Ellen caught him by the arm and held him in place.

"Calm. Down," she said. "Elliot isn't here."

Tedd's eyes bulged. "What?!"

"Elliot isn't here. For the third time."

"Well where is he?!"

"How should I know? I just woke up, and he was already gone."

"Well…when did he come back from the concert last night?!"

"Oh, maybe around…" Ellen suddenly paused. "…hunh. Come to think of it, I don't know. Guess I fell asleep before he came home."

"Or maybe he never did…" Tedd muttered.

"What's THAT supposed to mean?" Ellen said with a suspicious glare.

"His date last night, I think--"

"Uh-uh, stop right there," Ellen cut him off. "No WAY would Elliot do anything like that with Sarah."

"No, Ellen, I--"

"Elliot is way too much of a stick in the mud to let anything happen with Sarah yet and you know it. He probably just went on an early jog or--"

"ELLEN!"

"…what?"

"I don't care about any of that!"

"Well what do you want Elliot for, then?"

"I think he might be in danger!"

"…I'm sorry, _what_?" Ellen demanded, her expression clearly disbelieving.

"I'm serious! I need to talk to him, now! It's important!"

"Alright, alright, jeeze…" she grumbled, reaching for the phone. "I'll call Sarah and ask if she's seen--"

"NO!" he shouted, slapping her hand away.

"Dah! What the hell?!" she demanded.

"You can't call Sarah!"

"Why the hell not?!"

"Because Sarah might be the problem!"

Ellen glared at him long and hard. "…Okay, Tedd, you're going to have to start making some sense. My alarm clock has already put me in a bad mood, and you are really not helping. Now what the hell are you talking about?"

"We don't have time for--"

"MAKE time," Ellen insisted, and sat down at the kitchen table, folding her arms defiantly.

"Nnghh…fine…" Tedd grumbled. He sat down and whipped a laptop out of his backpack, laid it on the table, and typed furiously for a moment.

"…Well?" Ellen pressed.

"Okay…you heard about the little…accident at my house last week?"

"You mean when you tried to mess with the Dewitchery Diamond and the TF Gun at the same time?"

"It was an experiment!"

"Whatever. What about it?"

"Well…when things went sour…I think…something bad happened to Sarah."

Ellen visibly tensed. "What kind of bad?"

"Here, I'll show you…"

Tedd spun the laptop screen around to face Ellen, who watched as a video feed of Tedd's lab began playing.

"My webcams recorded everything that happened that day. I was knocked out halfway through, though, so later I wanted to watch the recordings and see what exactly went wrong…but when Grace went to get the cameras, they were all smashed. Most of the memory cards were damaged beyond repair…except for this one."

Ellen watched curiously as the recording played, and as the TF Gun and the Dewitchery Diamond reacted with each other and each of her friends were knocked out, she finally saw what Tedd must have been talking about: Sarah appearing in the camera's vision, smashing one of Tedd's cameras to bits.

"…What is she doing…?"

"Exactly. For a minute I was pissed off when I saw this, but…Grace pointed something out, and she's exactly right. The Sarah we know wouldn't do something like this."

"What do you mean, 'the Sarah we know?' What happened to her?!"

"……I think, when the TF Gun and the diamond's powers mixed, their transformative properties combined into one energy…and I think Sarah got hit with it."

Ellen's eyes widened rapidly. "You mean…?"

"Yeah. I think we have TWO Sarahs."

"…No, no, that…no way…"

"Is it really that hard to believe? Sarah and Elliot have been acting different all week, we've all noticed it. This would explain it, wouldn't it?"

"No, Tedd, it doesn't! If that's a Clone Sarah running around, she'd be acting exactly the same! She'd be an exact clone! And besides, if it was a clone, then where's the REAL Sarah? Why haven't we seen her at all?"

Tedd's expression turned grim. "…That's why I think Elliot might be in danger."

"Huh?"

"Think about it, Ellen…" he said, looking at her carefully, cautiously. "When you…y'know…when you were first…born. What did you do?"

Ellen tensed somewhat as she tried to recall the unsettling memory. "…I…guess I still thought I was Elliot…"

"After that."

"…I thought I was gonna die?"

"After that!"

"…I…said I was--" she stopped and went wide-eyed suddenly, catching on.

"You said you were his evil twin," Tedd confirmed, and tapped his screen. "I think, when this happened…Sarah got one of her own…and it's done something to her. Something to keep her from showing up at the same time…"

Ellen was rapidly growing pale. "But…why would her clone do that…?"

"I'd bet my TF Guns it's the same reason that first drove you. She knew she was a clone. She thought no one would accept a copy like her. But there's more to it this time…"

"More…?"

"Unlike you, THIS clone isn't physically transformed. She still looks exactly like our Sarah. Which means she can do something you couldn't."

And then Ellen got it. "She can get rid of the original…and take Sarah's place…"

"And if we've figured it out, there's a good chance Elliot will too. Maybe already has. And there's no telling what Clone Sarah'll do if that happens."

"Wait, Tedd, just…wait for one second! This is all just guesswork! We don't _know_ what really happened! It could all be nothing! You can't just…_assume_ all this!"

"We have to. Hope for the best and expect the worst," he said, and stood back up, putting the computer away. "Now come on, help me find Elliot. I'll check the dojo, you look around the mall…"

"But what if he IS at Sarah's house?"

"We're not going there unless absolutely necessary, it's too risky," Tedd insisted, tapping on his watch. "Now hurry up and get dressed while I call Grace."

Ellen squinted at the device on his wrist. "Aren't those…"

"The watch communicators, yes," Tedd muttered distractedly. "Grace? Grace, can you hear me?"

_**Skkkkknnnntttt.**_

No answer.

Tedd frowned and tapped the watch. "Grace? Are you there?"

_**Skkkkknnnntttt.**_

Still nothing.

"Why do you need to call her?" Ellen asked.

"I told her to try and think of places Elliot might be besides my house and look for him in case he wasn't here. Looks like it was a good idea…if she'd pick up…"

Ellen, however, paled again. "Tedd, what _exactly_ did you tell her?"

"I just told you, look for Elliot in places he'd most likely be."

"Nothing else? You said exactly that and nothing more?"

"Yeah, why?" he muttered, still tapping the watch. "Stupid thing…maybe she can't hear me…Dah! Leggo!"

He glared at Ellen, who had grabbed him tightly by the arm, but she stared back at him completely white-faced. "Tedd, if you told her to look for him in places he would probably be if he's not at home, or at your house, WHERE DO YOU THINK SHE'S GOING TO LOOK FIRST?!"

Tedd was silent for about three seconds before the answer struck him, and as he looked back at the unresponsive communicator, he too went pale as a ghost. "Oh no…"

* * *

Elliot woke up feeling like a million bucks.

His eyes blinked slowly open in the late-morning sunlight and he stretched out lazily, yawning a bit. He felt so very warm and cozy lying there, he was fairly sure he didn't want to get up. Especially not when Sarah was lying there with him…

Or at least he thought she was.

When his eyes adjusted, however, he realized she was no longer lying there beside him. She was probably already up and about, he decided with another yawn, and sat up to grab his shirt and pants and put them back on.

_What a night…_ he thought to himself. _If that wasn't the best date ever, I don't know what is…_

Everything really had been perfect. The concert was amazing, of course, but just being there with her made all the difference. He loved standing there with her cheering, talking with her as they walked home, kissing her goodnight before he would head home…or at least, that had been his plan. Sarah's, clearly, had been something entirely different.

He had to admit, he'd been surprised once again by Sarah's recent forwardness. He never expected the night to continue, much less the way it had gone when it did. She'd never shown even the slightest desire to get more physical before perhaps a week ago. Not that he had really minded the absence of the physical stuff, but…well…that night was about as physical as it was possible to get, and surprised though he might have been, it would be a lie if he said he hadn't enjoyed every second of it, that was for sure. He'd thought Sarah was attractive before, but dear God, seeing her standing there in all her glory, giving herself to him, moaning his name at every stroke of his hands--

_Okay, get a grip, Elliot_… his rational mind thought, the 'guy' part of his brain slowly quieting down and reality starting to set back in. _Good job controlling your libido, by the way. I bet mom and dad would be proud._

The thought jolted through him with an extremely unpleasant pang of guilt. His parents…they'd been right about his age when they became pregnant with him. Was this how it had happened? Had a really good date turned into a wild, passionate night that ended up forcing his mom to drop out of school and changing their lives forever? It had seemed so perfect at the time, he wasn't even thinking about the consequences, and protection didn't necessarily solve everything…after all his parents had been through for him, had he just resigned himself and Sarah to the same fate? Had he just made the same mistake?

Suddenly he didn't feel like a million bucks anymore.

"Elliot, you idiot…" he muttered to himself.

A rustling noise drew his attention outward a moment later. He turned his head and saw Sarah speed-walking across his vision, her expression tense and frustrated as her lips moved rapidly, as though thinking out loud. Maybe she was thinking along the same lines he was, he wondered.

"Sarah…?" he ventured.

She jerked, caught off guard, and looked wildly at Elliot before calming down. "Oh…you're up."

"Yeah…heh…hope you don't mind that I crashed here…"

"No, it's fine," she said distractedly, turning away and starting to hurry off again.

"H-hey, wait, hold on," he said, standing up and walking toward her. "Are you alright?"

She stopped again and turned halfway toward him to give him an obviously-strained smile. "I'm fine, stop worrying."

"You don't sound fine."

"It's nothing, really," she insisted.

"Sarah, come on, talk to me."

Sarah, however, looked like she just wanted to be somewhere else entirely, which only made Elliot think his suspicions might be correct. So he ventured a guess.

"Is this about…y'know…last night?"

"H-huh?" she blurted out, surprised. She probably hadn't expected him to pick up on it, he thought.

"Because maybe we…let things get a little out of hand?"

"…OH!" she exclaimed. "Oh…well…y-yeah, I guess maybe you're right…"

"I thought so…and I'm sorry about that, I know we had protection and all but I should've controlled myself better--"

"Really, Elliot, it's okay," she rapidly assured him. "I had an amazing time. It was a perfect night and I wouldn't trade a minute of it, okay?"

"…So you're not mad about…?"

"Not even a little. Besides, it wasn't all your fault…I was all caught up in the moment too, right?"

"Right…yeah…" he said with a nervous cough. "So we're…okay?"

"Better than okay," she assured him, swiftly kissing his lips. "Listen, we'll talk more a little later, but I really need to go take care of something. You stay right there, okay?"

"Ah…I dunno, my parents might be worried…maybe I should head home--"

At that point, however, she slid her arms around his neck and squeezed in close to him, and he somehow forgot what he was going to say next.

"I'll just be gone for a minute, okay…?" she cooed quietly. "Stay just a little longer, please? For me?"

"…Well…" he said slowly, "…I guess if I'm gonna get grounded for being out all night, another half hour won't make much difference, right?"

"Right. And then we can…talk more," she said. She patted the top of his butt. "And I can make fun of your cute little birthmark some more."

"I don't know why it fascinates you so much, but…sure, okay."

Sarah grinned and kissed him again. "Great. I'll be right back. And don't move!"

Elliot chuckled. "I'll be as stiff as a board."

Sarah squeezed his hand in thanks, then hurried out the front door.

"Well…that went well," he said to himself, relieved. He was half-afraid they would get into another fight, but thankfully Sarah wasn't mad at him at all. She still wanted to talk to him, though…probably about the date, he guessed, and where she wanted to draw the line as far as physical stuff for the future…after losing control and letting themselves run the bases, taking a step back was probably a good idea. Nice though it was, he wasn't keen on risking it again so soon.

_Th-thump._

Elliot's ears perked. He thought he'd heard something…footsteps, maybe. Except no one else was supposed to be in the house…

_Th-thump._

There it was again. Faint, but noticeable. And coming from Sarah's room.

Elliot tensed. Was someone in there? A burglar, perhaps? What kind of burglar was stupid enough to rob a house in broad daylight?

Cautiously he walked toward her room and peeked through the door, which stood ajar. He didn't see anyone…

_**Th-thump**_.

…but he could still hear the sound, whatever it was. It didn't sound like footsteps anymore…but it was definitely coming from her room.

He stepped inside, looking around curiously. Nothing seemed out of place or unusual…her bed was made, her dresser was neat, her wardrobe—

_**Th-thump**_.

Elliot stiffened. The wardrobe door was rattling. That was the noise. Was the wind making it…no, her window was closed, he realized. Did something fall over inside? No, because then why would it be constantly rattling?

_**Th-thump.**_

…Was something alive in there?

"Hello…?" Elliot said.

_**Th-thump thump!**_

The doors rattled again, harder this time. Something was in there, and it heard him. Elliot's gaze hardened, and his muscles tensed, ready for trouble. He slowly reached for the handle, turned the lock, and jerked back as the doors flew open and a pair of figures spilled out.

Elliot's eyes shot open in shock and disbelief. "What the…?!"

One figure, haphazardly tied up and gagged with duct tape, was Grace, in her human form, silent and motionless. She didn't look like she was breathing.

The other…Elliot was almost positive he was hallucinating. There was no way what he was seeing was real. It couldn't be…

"…Sarah…?"

Indeed, despite his head's denials, Sarah was lying there beside Grace, bound and gagged as well, except she was definitely active, struggling weakly to sit up. Elliot instinctively moved to help her, holding her head in his hands and raising her up to face him. He tore the tape slowly from her mouth, and she gasped for a free breath as soon as she could.

"Sarah, what…what's going--"

"She tricked you…" Sarah rasped. "She's a fake…she…no!"

Her eyes widened as she gazed past Elliot, and he spun around to face the barrel of a TF Gun aimed at his face, and a second Sarah behind the trigger.

"I told you not to move."

_**FLASH!**_

Everything went green for one brilliant moment…and then, it was all black.

* * *

Comments and critiques welcomed and appreciated, as always.


	13. A Twin Thing: Alternate Ending

**Twin Envy: Alternate Ending**

_Chapter Nine__: A Twin Thing_

* * *

"Mmmpphh…"

Elliot gradually came back to consciousness, though how he'd lost it escaped him at the moment. All he was really aware of at first was that he felt unusually tired and groggy.

When he realized he was waking up in a sitting position, however, and that he couldn't move his arms or legs, it started to come back to him exactly what had happened.

He opened his eyes, glancing down at himself in shock. He was tied to a chair, arms behind his back, and gagged with a strip of tape. The room around him was dark, but the light shining through the one tiny window across the room gave him enough light to recognize where he was: Sarah's basement.

It was coming back to him now…Sarah had left him alone for a few minutes…he'd heard strange sounds from her room…and when he'd gone to look, he'd found…another Sarah…?

It wasn't possible. He _had_ to have dreamed it. He had to be dreaming _this_. There was no way he was actually sitting here tied to a chair in Sarah's basement. There was no way he'd seen another Sarah stuffed in a closet. There was no way he'd seen Grace stuffed in there with her looking, for all intents and purposes, lifeless.

And there was absolutely…positively _no way_ he'd seen the first Sarah return, and actually…shoot him. Even with the TF Gun, it seemed impossible that Sarah could do something like that to him.

But then he heard a rustling beside him, and when he turned toward it and squinted in the minimal light, he realized that it wasn't a dream. On his right, similarly tied to chairs and gagged, were Sarah and Grace. Sarah was stirring, eyes slowly blinking open. Grace, however, was still.

Elliot tensed. What the hell was going on?

"Mmphh!" he mumbled, trying to get Sarah's attention. She lifted her head up and turned to him at the sound, eyes wide and urgent. She looked terrified. She glanced at Grace, and from the expression she wore Elliot knew she feared the same thing he did, and prayed he was wrong about it.

Slowly he rolled his jaw back and forth, wetting his lips and gradually loosening the sticky adhesive over his mouth. It took several minutes of working, but at last he managed to force open space between his face and the tape. It still stuck to his lower jaw, but at least he could breathe properly. And talk.

"Sarah," he said, turning to her. "What is this? What's going on?"

Unfortunately her answer was too muffled for him to make out. He had to un-gag her somehow.

"Lean toward me and hold still," he told her. Sarah complied, leaning as far toward him as she could, and Elliot leaned in as well toward her cheek, until he could latch his teeth on the outer edge of the tape.

"On three, yank away as hard as you can," Elliot mumbled through gritted teeth. "One….two…three!"

Both yanked backward at once, ripping the tape clean off, which Elliot promptly spit out. Sarah, meanwhile, gasped for breath and finally looked back at him with fearful eyes.

"Elliot, it was _her_, the accident, she was just _there_ and she blasted me and then I kept waking up in the closet and then Grace was there, oh God, Grace--"

"Sarah!" Elliot said sharply. "Calm down! Breathe!"

Sarah panted for breath, no less afraid, but slowly calming. "The diamond, Elliot…in the lab accident, she--"

"--is sick and tired of having to shut you up."

The voice was exactly the same. Except it held none of her usual warmth and compassion. And it didn't come from her mouth. Elliot whipped his head around toward the source of her voice, and all illusions of the scene being a dream were gone. Sarah was beside him, tied to the chair…just as much as she was standing in front of both of them, fury etched on her face and one of Tedd's precious Transformation Guns leveled at both of them. Every inch of her looked exactly the same as the girl held beside him, from tip of her blonde head to the shirt on her back to the soles of her shoes.

A perfect imitation.

A clone.

"The diamond…" Elliot echoed Sarah's words, suddenly understanding. "At the lab accident last week…Sarah got hit with it…"

"Right in one," the clone answered.

"All this time…this whole last week…"

"Had you fooled, didn't I?" the clone snickered derisively. "Not that it was difficult…I AM Sarah, you know. Down to the last detail."

"You're not Sarah!" Elliot fired back.

"You sure seemed to think so this past week…" she sneered.

"What do you think you're doing, tying us up down here? And Grace?! What did you do to Grace?!"

"She's not dead, if that's what you're getting so bent out of shape about," the clone snapped. "She's just stunned. And you will be too in a minute…"

Thankful though he was that Grace was okay, Elliot wasn't any less angry. "I want to know what's going on. Now."

"I'm doing what YOUR little clone didn't have the guts to do."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"She wants to replace me," the real Sarah said. "She stunned me as soon as we realized the diamond split us. When I woke up I was stuffed in that closet, and she would come back and stun me again. She wanted to take over my life, and keep me out of the way."

Elliot rounded furiously on the clone. "It that true?!"

"It WAS," the clone growled, her own anger rising. "Until you and Grace started snooping around where you didn't belong."

"So you tied us up and threw us in the basement? Brilliant plan," Elliot said with a smirk. "I'm sure no one's ever going to notice us missing and come looking for us."

Like lighting the clone whipped the TF gun up at him and fired a burst of stun energy at him. Elliot jerked, expecting to pass out again, but instead his whole body went slack, like he was paralyzed.

"That was a low power stun. Don't make me shut you up completely," the clone snarled.

"Why are you doing this?!" Elliot demanded. "What did we ever do to you?!"

"I don't have much choice in the matter, do I?" Clone Sarah countered, turning her angry stare on the real Sarah. "This house is _hers_. This _family _is hers. This _life _is hers. That's all anyone's ever going to see. But it still feels like _mine_. And I want it back!"

"You couldn't just ask?!" Elliot burst out. "You really think there's no other place in the world for you?! That you couldn't live peacefully somewhere else?!"

"I don't WANT to live somewhere else!" the clone shot back. "THIS is my life, and SHE'S standing between us!"

She gripped the front of Elliot's shirt and yanked him forward. "You could've been perfectly happy…you could've lived a great life with me, and you'd _never_ have known anything had changed. But no, you just HAD to go sticking your nose where you didn't belong…you AND that little squirrel girl…and now _both_ of you need to _disappear_ along with your little girlfriend!"

"That's not gonna happen, you sorry excuse for a body-snatcher!"

"And who's going to stop me? No one else knows you're here. Once I close off you loose ends there won't be anyone left that knows what happened."

"You're pretty thick for being cloned from someone as smart as Sarah," Elliot sneered. "If Grace came snooping, you can BET Tedd's figuring out what's going on. Especially when she doesn't come back. And once Tedd knows, it's only a matter of time before _everyone_ knows. Face it, clone, your little plan is falling apart at the seams."

The clone was shaking with rage now. Good, Elliot thought to himself. It was working. The paralysis was already wearing off, and she was getting angry to the point of losing focus. Of not thinking clearly.

Of making a mistake.

"C'mon, what stings the most?" he provoked. "That you were found out? That your ruse to take over the rest of Sarah's life lasted a whopping seven days before it fell apart?"

"Shut up!"

"Or is it knowing that no one is going to ever believe you're really Sarah again? That as far as anyone else is concerned, you're just a clone?"

To his misfortune, he'd pushed too far, and his plan abruptly backfired. The clone whipped the TF Gun around suddenly, not shooting it but instead swinging it like a club, and not at him, but at--

_**CRACK!**_

"AHH!" Sarah screamed sharply, her head thrust to one side from the impact and her lip bleeding from the fresh wound.

"HEY! Leave her out of this!" Elliot shouted, going pale.

"Then shut your goddamn mouth!" the clone shouted back, raising the gun again and ready to strike her again.

"Okay, okay!" Elliot blurted out. "Just don't hurt her!"

The clone lowered her weapon and glared at him for a moment longer. Then, at last, she made the mistake he was looking for. Her cell phone rang. And for the sake of maintaining her cover, she turned away from him to answer it, and set the TF Gun down on a nearby table for a few critical seconds. That was all Elliot needed.

The moment she was turned away the changes had begun. Fur sprouted to life across his whole body. His torso bulged with muscle, making the ropes feel, if anything, tighter. His pupils ceased to be round and narrowed into slits. And most importantly, pointed claws grew from his fingertips, more than sharp enough to cut the rope that bound him.

"Nice to know this cat-form has _some_ uses…" Elliot observed. _**SLICE!**_ Away went his bindings.

"Wh--HEY! STOP IT!" the clone suddenly shouted, dropping her phone.

_**SLICE-SLICE!**_ Away went Sarah's and Grace's ropes.

"I SAID STOP IT!" Clone Sarah shrieked, diving for the gun. But Elliot was just slightly quicker. He slammed his claws down upon the TF Gun before the clone could so much as touch it; but the instant he did, a burst of green light radiated from it, and the stun energy within burst outward.

_**ZZHHTT!**_

"AHHH!" he cried out, at once human and feline as the energy surged through his body and dropped him to the floor by the stairs, panting.

"Serves you right, you little pest!" Clone Sarah growled, gripping the now-broken TF Gun. "You're going to pay for ruining my plan!"

The clone raised what was left of the gun over her head, ready to bash him over the head with it, but Elliot was left paralyzed on the ground by the stun energy, and the feeling in his limbs was coming back far too slowly…

"LEAVE HIM ALONE!"

Both Elliot and the clone whirled around just in time to catch sight of the _real_ Sarah rushing toward them before she crashed right into Clone Sarah. The broken TF Gun went flying as Sarah tackled her clone roughly to the ground, the both of them rolling over each other a few times in a sudden struggle for dominance. Elliot himself could only watch helplessly, not only unable to do so much as sit up yet, but because he could no longer tell which Sarah was which.

"Elliot!"

Elliot twisted toward the new voice, and smiled broadly. "Tedd…Ellen…"

Indeed, his best friend and his sister were leaping down the basement stairs, Tedd armed with the only remaining TF Gun and Ellen armed with her own glowing-green fists.

"Looks like we were right," Tedd said grimly, catching sight of the fight in the middle of the floor. "There _was _a Clone-Sarah all this time."

"Tedd caught enough of it on camera during that accident last week to figure it out," Ellen hastily explained. "Then when Grace didn't come back from here we had a feeling you guys might be in trouble."

"And speaking of which, where IS Grace…?" Tedd added worriedly.

"Over there…by the chairs," Elliot managed to point to the floor off to the side of Sarah and her clone battling.

Tedd turned to follow his finger, and promptly gasped. "Grace!"

He hurried over to her, dropping his TF Gun into Elliot's hand as he struggling to his feet.

"What happened to you?" Ellen asked.

"Broke the other TF Gun…stun energy knocked the wind outta me for a bit, but I'm fine. Nnhh…" he grunted. "Still wobbly though…"

"Here," Ellen said, grabbing the gun from him and firing the normalizer setting at him. In an instant the paralysis lifted completely, and Elliot was back in his own, human body.

"Thanks," Elliot said. "I'll take that…"

Without waiting for a response he snatched the TF Gun from Ellen's grip and, hard-faced, leveled the weapon at the pair of Sarahs.

"HEY!!"

Both Sarahs froze in place and looked up at Elliot, who stared defiantly back, searching both of them for some way of telling them apart. But there was nothing. The cut lip the clone had given the real Sarah was no longer unique; the clone had gotten one herself in the scuffle. They both wore the same clothes; shirts, pants, even their shoes were indistinguishable from each other.

They were perfectly identical. And all three of them knew it.

"Elliot, I'm the real Sarah, shoot her!" the one on the left shouted abruptly, jabbing an accusing finger at the other.

"No! I'm the real Sarah, she's lying!" the one on the right countered immediately.

"She's the liar! Elliot, you know me, you know I'm the real one!"

"No, Elliot, she's trying to trick you! Zap her!"

"Zap _her_, Elliot!"

"Elliot, please, it's me!

"No, Elliot, I'M Sarah!"

"No, I AM!"

"You are not!"

"Yes I am! You're just a clone!"

"YOU'RE the clone!"

"I AM NOT A--"

"BOTH OF YOU STOP IT, NOW!"

Both Sarahs fell instantly silent at Elliot's command, and the boy moved the gun back and forth between each of them, unable to tell them apart.

_C'mon Elliot, think…this can't be so hard…_ he told himself. _Just ask them something that only the real Sarah would know…wait, no, that won't work…the clone has all the same memories of the real Sarah, she knows everything Sarah knew…anything I could possibly ask to tell them apart, both of them would know easily…_

…_unless…oh no…of course…oh god…_

Elliot grimaced, but he had a plan. He didn't like it…as a matter of fact he was already hating himself for it…but it was all he had.

"Alright you two," he said as he eyed the identical girls, hard-faced. "Since I can't tell you apart myself, we'll have to do this another way. I'm going to ask you both a question. Something only the _real_ Sarah could possibly know. And once I get a right answer, I'll know who's who."

"Uhh…Elliot?" Ellen chimed in. "That won't--"

"I know what I'm doing, Ellen," he stopped her.

"But Elliot, the clone knows everything the real Sarah does!"

"Ellen, trust me!" he said back, his tone final. "No matter what…there is _no possible way_ that _anyone_ but the _real _Sarah could possibly know this…"

As he expected, both Sarahs looked at once nervous and jumpy, both ready to pounce on the right answer the instant they heard the question. But only one of them would know it. Of that, unfortunately, he was certain…

"Alright then…" he said, keeping his expression neutral. "Here it is…"

The room listened with baited breath.

"…I have a birthmark. Where is it and what does it look like?"

For a moment both girls froze as their minds raced to comprehend the question. Then the Sarah on his right seemed to pale sharply as though completely baffled, while the Sarah on the left burst out enthusiastically, "It's a crescent moon on your butt!"

Elliot smirked grimly, and leveled the gun at the one who answered. "Bingo."

_**ZZHHTT!**_

The blast of stun energy fired at low power straight into the girl whom Elliot now knew to be the clone, and she crumpled to the ground, shock on every face in the room but his own.

"B-but I…I got it right…!" the clone sputtered weakly.

"…Exactly," Elliot said, his face grim. "The real Sarah never saw that birthmark."

All too late, the clone realized her mistake with stunned eyes. "The date…after the concert…" She glared angrily at him. "You said only the real Sarah would know! You tricked me!"

Elliot only looked away from her. Unfortunately, his eyes fell on the real Sarah instead, and she was staring at him in shock, trying to wrap her mind around what he'd just admitted to.

"Elliot, how did she know that…?" she murmured, her voice almost pleading for an innocent answer that Elliot could not truthfully give.

"Heh-heh-heh-he-he-he-ha-ha-ha-ha…!" the clone Sarah suddenly cackled. "Isn't it obvious, Sarah?"

"……"

"Oh, this is TOO perfect…" the clone kept cackling, her eyes on Sarah. "Think about it. To see a birthmark on his butt, I had to see his butt. It's nice, you'd like it." The clone laughed again and turned her vengeful eye on Elliot. "Hey Elliot, why don't you tell her what you thought of MY butt. Or is it OURS?" she added, grinning darkly back at Sarah.

"Shut up…" Elliot muttered, but all the authority in his tone had vanished, his head hanging in guilt.

None of this, of course, got by the real Sarah, her face falling as she stared back and forth between Elliot and the clone. "…You…you and her…?"

"All. Night. Long," the clone mocked mercilessly.

"Shut up…!" Elliot growled again, but was equally ineffective.

"…You…you disgusting…horrible…" Sarah quietly seethed, glaring furiously at her clone.

"Oooh, you're mad," the clone snickered, clearly taking a sick pleasure in tormenting them. "I don't see why. I just did what YOU were too scared to do."

"Shut up!" Sarah shouted.

"C'mon, Sarah, what stings the most?" the clone said, mocking Elliot's own words. "That I got more action in a week than you EVER did? That I STOLE your boyfriend's virginity?" The clone's smile turned downright evil. "Or that I _gave _him _yours_…?"

"I said SHUT UP!"

The TF Gun was in Sarah's hands before Elliot even realized she'd reached for it, and a flash of energy later the clone went limp and fell silent, not a single other sound from the shocked faces around the room. But the damage had been done.

Weakly, Elliot spoke up. "Sarah…I…"

He got no farther before she blew past him, charging up the stairs alone.

"Sarah, wait!" he called after her.

But it did no good. She was already gone.

"…Sarah…"

* * *

Comments and critiques welcomed and appreciated, as always.


	14. Starting Over: Alternate Ending

**Twin Envy: Alternate Ending**

_Chapter Ten__: Starting Over_

* * *

It was a good hour before Mr. Verres arrived on the scene with some of his coworkers to try to make some sense of what had happened. By then the clone Sarah had woken up, and she wasn't making things easy for anyone, least of all Elliot. By the time Mr. Verres' people had taken her from the house, Elliot's mood was about as low as it had ever been in his life.

He sat limply on Sarah's front porch, head in his hands and staring at the ground. He felt like trash. For an entire week, the girl he loved had been replaced by an evil doppelganger, and he hadn't noticed a thing, hadn't even so much as _suspected_ it. In hindsight, he realized, he should have guessed something was wrong…her added forwardness, her more aggressive moves in their relationship, and most obviously that last date…

He shuddered at that thought. It was that more than anything else that made him feel like garbage. He'd let himself be seduced by a total fake…had thrown caution to the winds and, for all intents and purposes, cheated on the girl he loved…

"Elliot?"

Elliot jerked out of his thoughts and looked up at the voice briefly, then hung his head again. "Jeez, Tedd, you scared me."

Tedd said nothing to that, sitting beside him and patting his shoulder. "So, ah…how you feeling, man?"

Elliot sighed. "I've been better."

"…Yeah, I guess that's understandable," Tedd said. "…but at least Sarah and Grace are okay, y'know?"

"Yeah…"

"Heh…and at least I know more about the stun setting now, too," Tedd started. "It was supposed to totally suspend all body function for the duration of the stun blast – heartbeat, brain-waves, need for nourishment, even aging – but I was never sure if that was the case. With Sarah being kept stunned for a solid week, though, it pretty much proves it works the way it's supposed to, right? 'Cause otherwise she probably would've died of thirst or starvation long before we ever--"

He stopped himself abruptly at a sharp glare from Elliot, and cleared his throat awkwardly. "Right. Sorry."

Elliot stared back at the ground. "So much for this being the best week of my life…"

Tedd gave him a hopeful smile. "C'mon, man, you're a hero. You exposed the clone, stopped her evil plan, and otherwise generally saved the day. Cheer up a little."

"Easier said than done."

"…Elliot, you have to know that none of this was your fault."

"I should've figured it out, Tedd. I should've known she was a fake. But I just…let myself get pulled into her whole charade, and the whole time, Sarah…" he trailed off and sighed again. "…I feel like I cheated on her, Tedd…"

"…Yeah, about that…" he said hesitantly. "The stuff the clone said…that you and her, uh…"

Elliot slowly nodded, reddening with guilt and embarrassment. "It's true…every word she said was true…"

Tedd cleared his throat again. "…I see…"

Elliot sighed. "If you want to lecture me go ahead and get it over with…not like I don't deserve it."

"I wasn't gonna. I'm just…surprised, is all. I thought, y'know, you were really serious about being careful with that stuff."

"I am. Or I was…" Elliot mumbled. "…it was just…one thing started leading to another, and…I knew I should've stopped it, but…I didn't. I was weak. I let her talk me into it. I just let it happen…with a goddamn clone…"

"…Hey, you're only human," Tedd said comfortingly. "Besides, there's no way you could've known who she really was, right? That clone WAS Sarah, basically. Every little thing was totally identical about them."

"Aside from the whole 'evil twin' syndrome, you mean?"

"…Y'know, to be honest, that's the one thing I can't figure out," Tedd admitted. "Sarah's usually so…reserved. How could a clone of her be that angry and spiteful?"

"_That was her curse._"

Both boys looked up at the new voice. Tedd's father loomed over them, staring down at them with an expression somewhere between angry at their obvious meddling with the Dewitchery Diamond and relieved that no one had been hurt.

Tedd smiled weakly. "Ah…heh, hey, dad…"

"What do you mean her curse?" Elliot asked.

Mr. Verres sighed slightly. "After some preliminary observations, we realized her curse _wasn't_ the result of the stun ray, as we might have first thought. It's more likely that the diamond's energy affected Sarah first and split her in two, and the Transformation Gun's stun energy hit both her and her clone immediately afterward. And judging from her clone's behavior, it seems probable that Sarah was in an unnaturally angry mindset when she was hit. So her 'cursed' clone inherited that." Mr. Verres eyed them for another moment before gazing back at the government-marked van that was just now driving off, in which the clone was held. "Poor thing…all that anger, misdirected…"

Elliot hung his head again in guilt. "So it _was_ my fault…she was mad at _me _when that accident happened…"

"Elliot, she was mad at the _world _for taking her grandfather away from her. It wasn't your fault," Tedd tried to assure him. "We went over this, remember?"

"…I guess," Elliot admitted. "…But I still didn't even realize she was a clone this whole time, I could have--"

"Elliot, I'm not exactly your father, but have some fatherly advice anyway," Mr. Verres stopped him. "Whether or not you could or couldn't have known that there was a clone doesn't really matter now. What _does _matter is that there is a sad, scared, and confused girl upstairs right now needing comfort. Is it really the best idea for you to be sitting there feeling sorry for yourself?"

Elliot thought about that for approximately five seconds. Then, without another word, he stood up, turned, and went inside the house.

"Heh…nice one, dad," Tedd said with a grin.

Mr. Verres only stared down at him sternly.

Tedd sighed. "I'm in trouble again, aren't I…?"

* * *

_Knock, knock_.

Sarah barely lifted her head at the sound, instead curling tighter around her pillow and staring into empty space. She'd been that way for a full hour, ever since they had stopped that awful clone…but rather than feeling happy or relieved, she just felt numb inside.

She'd been skeptical about the whole question thing right from the start; as Ellen had so carefully pointed out, anything she knew, the clone should know too. But then Elliot brought out that whopper of a question, about a birthmark on his butt, and the crap hit the fan. The very thought of Elliot and that clone together, of that clone giving Elliot everything she had to give…it almost made Sarah herself feel violated. It was HER body too. That freak of nature had NO right to give away something that private and intimate to her…and that didn't even BEGIN to touch on Elliot's part in it all, which she had no idea at all how to feel about…it took two to tango, after all, and thinking about him sleeping with someone else absolutely tore her up inside…it was his fault just as much as it was the clone's…but could she really blame him, when he'd had no idea…?

_Knock, knock_. "Sarah…?"

Elliot's voice. Her body tensed; did she really want to even look at him right now, much less talk to him?

Still, she didn't say anything, and Elliot seemed to take her silence as something resembling an invitation. She heard her door open and close quietly, heard his soft breath now present in the room, heard his slow footsteps as he approached her bed and stood at the foot of it.

"…Tedd's dad and his people came. They're gonna take the…y'know…the clone…they're taking her to his paranormal investigation unit…they'll take care of her…hopefully try to find a place in the world for her…"

Sarah only nodded noncommittally, half wishing he would leave her alone for the rest of her life and half wishing he would grab her and hold her and kiss her and never let go.

"Sarah…"

Still she kept silent, not looking at him, not hardly even moving, almost hoping he'd think she was asleep and go away so she wouldn't have to deal with this right now, even though they both knew she was wide awake.

"Sarah, I…" he started again. "…I'm sorry."

…Well, that was a start, Sarah thought to herself.

"I feel…absolutely disgusted with myself…I betrayed you, I betrayed myself…there's no explanation for what I did. I should have known she was fake, but…I just never realized it until it was too late."

Sarah listened quietly, letting him get it out. Truthfully, she needed to hear this just as much as he needed to get it out.

"…I'm so sorry, Sarah, I had no idea, or I swear, it never would have happened. The only reason it happened in the first place was…it was because I…thought it was you. And I know that's no excuse at all, and I still feel like I've totally betrayed you, but I…I just wanted you to know the truth…"

Sarah's eyes were squeezed shut against the tears by the time he fell silent. Of course, she berated herself, of course he was sorry. Of course he felt terrible for what happened. She could scarcely believe she'd thought any less of him. Hell, he didn't even have anything to be sorry for, when it came down to it. He thought it was her, Sarah, whom he was loving and caring for. The clone was the one perverting his honest feelings and actions. He wasn't trying to go behind her back and sleep with someone else…

"…Sarah, please, say something…"

Sarah slowly rolled over and sat up to face him, unable to hold off her tears any longer as she smiled at him. "Don't be sorry, Elliot…you don't have anything to be sorry for. The whole thing's my fault anyway…"

"It was not your fault," he said instantly.

"Yes it was, Elliot," she insisted. "I got mad at you over that stupid…stupid fight, I threw that book, I…I caused the whole accident that created…her…in the first place."

Elliot didn't respond to that.

"I took out all my stupid frustrations on you," Sarah continued, everything gushing out now. "The whole fight wouldn't have happened if I hadn't been so hung up on my own problems. I was a total jerk to you and you didn't deserve it, and...and it's my fault that clone was created, and my fault that she did…the things she did."

She looked down again, averting her eyes and rolling away again. "So if anyone should be sorry, it's me…"

Elliot was beside her on the bed in an instant, pulling her into a tight hug from behind, to her surprise.

"You couldn't have known any of this was gonna happen, any more than I could have known that that clone took your place," he said quietly. "You don't have to be sorry for that."

"Then don't be sorry for thinking the clone was me."

"But I _am_ sorry for that."

"And _I'm_ sorry about causing the whole fight."

"But you don't have to be."

"Neither do you."

"Well I still am."

Sarah smiled simply and turned to face him again. "Well then, let's say we're both sorry and we both forgive each other, because I haven't kissed you in more than a week, and I really miss it, and a 'kiss and make up' sounds really nice right about now."

Elliot smiled right back. "I couldn't agree more."

And before they knew it, the entire fight, from the day it had started to the accident in the lab to that very moment, was nothing more than a bad memory. They didn't say a word; not to apologize, not to reassure, not even to say their 'I Love You's.' None of it was necessary. Their lips were together, and that was all that mattered in the world.

They parted after a long, soothing moment, smiling with relief as though a huge weight had been lifted from their shoulders, each much more relaxed and comfortable.

"So…how was she?" Sarah managed to say with a teasing chuckle.

"……"

Sarah blushed hard. "Heh…sorry…bad joke…"

"Sarah, about that, I…"

Sarah put a finger to his lips, stopping him. "Seriously, you don't need to say anything…you don't have to apologize, or feel like you have to…make it up to me, or make it even, or anything silly like that, okay? I'm not mad anymore…"

"…Heh…" Elliot managed a smile. "Aren't you even…jealous…?"

Sarah shook her head. "If it happens for us…it happens. We'll cross that bridge when we come to it."

Elliot chuckled nervously. "Heh…alright then…"

And a moment later they fell silent again, the awkward conversations forgotten, as kissing each other seemed like a much better idea.

* * *

_Epilogue: One week later…_

* * *

All around them people screamed. Speakers and amps blared so intensely they must have been cranked up to eleven. The noise was deafening.

But it was a really, really good kind of deafening.

"You really didn't have to do this!" Sarah shouted over the din.

"Yeah, well, I did anyway!" Elliot shouted back with a smile. "You're worth it!"

"I'm worth flying a hundred miles outside Moperville to catch the Random Dudes at their next tour spot?!" she asked.

At first Elliot only held his soft smile on hers. And as the Random Dudes' current song ended and the next one struck up into what Elliot knew was her favorite love ballad, they closed in and embraced, revolving on the spot in a tender slow dance to the quieter, soothing tune.

"You're worth all that and more," Elliot assured her, whispering into her ear. "I love you, Sarah."

"I love you too," Sarah whispered back, glowing and smiling. "You _and_ your little birthmark."

"I _knew_ it was a mistake to show you that," Elliot chuckled. "No matter how much you begged."

"Call me curious," Sarah laughed right back. "Besides, it's cute."

"It's also on my butt."

"That's why it's cute," she giggled, and Elliot couldn't help himself from laughing too as he pulled her closer and kissed her cheek until she turned her head and made him kiss her lips instead.

And the band played on…

And they danced.

* * *

**THE END**

* * *

Author's Notes: I hope those of you who chose to read this far enjoyed the alternate ending, or if not, will take the time to tell me why. Either way, choose the ending that suits your tastes, and judge the story accordingly. Thanks for reading.

And of course, comments and critiques welcomed and appreciated, as always.


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